It seems as though t-shirt maker American Apparel has crossed the line when it comes to advertising their merchandise. Besides the long history of using provocative and sexually suggestive ads to promote their t-shirts, AA has now come under fire for using models who appear to be under the age of 16 in a recent campaign.
As a result, these AA ads have been banned in the UK. An American Apparel spokesperson acknowledged the fact that the images might be seen as taking advantage of underage teen sexuality.
This brings about the issue of what is fashion, what is free expression, and what is the standard of human decency. This issue always seems to surface in the fashion industry but also in the art world as well. When is it art (or just an ad) and when does it cause harm and offence to the general public?
Who knew that custom t-shirts could be so thought provoking? I guess that was AA’s point after all. You can see the full article here.










