American Apparel t shirts

American Apparel t shirts get lots of love in the clothing world. In fact, they’re the largest clothing manufacturer in the US. Why?

Well, first of all, they’re very high quality shirts that fit very well and are made right here in the USA– Los Angeles to be exact. No sweatshop labor used to produce these threads, which is a big deal. Look at some of the places your clothes are made these days: China, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia. Hard to say under what kind of working conditions these clothes were produced. Unfortunately, there’s a pretty good possibility in the global shirt business that worker conditions are bad.

There’s no worse kill buzz than wearin’ your favorite, funny t shirt then thinking about 10-year-olds knockin’ out 14-hour, bone-grinding, soul-crushing days in shitty conditions, so your beloved tee can be commodity cheap. I’m not sayin’ everything made outside the US of A is sweatshop, and everything made in the United States is under milk and honey conditions, but it’s good to know where your stuff is coming from. Guilt-free hilarious pleasure is a step up from ignorance is bliss.

American Apparel is also very active with labor rights, especially for immigrants, and pays its factory workers more than two times the going rate in LA. Plus, they’re dipping their toes in the clean cotton movement, adding quite a bit of organic cotton and cotton that has been minimally sprayed with pesticides. This is VERY commendable, especially for a publicly traded company that has shareholders to answer to.

American Apparel does it right on the production end, so their stuff is inevitably more expensive, but when it comes right down to it, the most effective vote for real change you can make is how you spend your money.

If you dig the American Apparel tshirt equation, check out the following online retailers. All of them print a significant amount of their funny t shirts on AA stock:

Snorg Tees