Jan 27, 2009 11:19 AM
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Wed Feb 10
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Simple patriotic pornographic clothing firm American Apparel is beset by trouble! Now the SEC is investigating the company. Because of fishy leaked emails. Which we have for you, below!
This whole mess appears to be tangentially related to AA's never ending feud with lawyer Keith Fink, the go-to guy for disgruntled former AA employees who want to file lawsuits. The company has itself been trying to discredit Fink in return, hence its very urgent desire for some good press. The emails below (says AA's flack: "Our position is that those are unauthenticated e-mails") show a back and forth convo between an AA PR man (Ryan Holiday) and its finance chief (Adrian Kowalewski), trying to round up a good quote for a story. The bit about the company almost going bankrupt is what has the SEC investigating now:
>—-— Original Message —-—
>From: Ryan Holiday
>To: Adrian Kowalewski
>Cc: Candace Keene
>Sent: Wed Dec 24 13:08:23 2008
>Subject: Solution
>
>Adrian -
>
>I don't believe Maya used any other AA sources for her story and since this
>was a profile piece on the company, that's probably not good. For that, I
>had hoped you two would be able to connect briefly so she wouldn't be
>relying on past misinformation, a la the LA Times layoff piece or the WSJ.
>It didn't work out which is fine.
>
>Do you think you could please send her one positive, general statement about
>the financial direction and structure of the company before this two hour
>deadline? She will need it (although she likely won't admit it) and it would
>solve this problem.
>
>
>Ryan>—-— Original Message —-—
>From: Adrian Kowalewski
>To: Ryan Holiday
>Cc: Candace Keene
>Sent: Wed Dec 24 13:23:08 2008
>Subject: Re: Solution
>
>Dude, it's Christmas Eve and I'm at the airport. Are you kidding me? I never
>gave any indication I would be able to get around to this in a timely
>manner.>—-— Original Message —-—
>From: Ryan Holiday
>To: Adrian Kowalewski
>Cc: Candace Keene
>Sent: Wed Dec 24 13:28:41 2008
>Subject: Re: Solution
>
>Adrian,
>
>I'm sorry, I know but this woman's questions have been in going on three
>weeks. She had a deadline and confirmation and there is a story. This was a
>15 minute thing.
>
>Ryan>—-— Original Message —-—
>From: Adrian Kowalewski
>To: Ryan Holiday
>Cc: Candace Keene
>Sent: Wed Dec 24 13:33:04 2008
>Subject: Re: Solution
>
>
>1. We almost went bankrupt last Friday. I'm sorry but I was busy with that
>for the last several weeks.
>2. I've been sick and occupied with other company matters since Friday
>because we're hardly out of the woods on #1.
>3. It's the holiday.
>
>If you want to handle these questions and it's only 15 minutes then please
>go ahead.>—-— Original Message —-—
>From: Ryan HolidWeay
>To: Adrian Kowalewski
>Sent: Wed Dec 24 13:44:19 2008
>Subject: Re: Solution
>
>Adrian,
>
>Dude I understand. If you can't do it then you can't do it, I'm only trying
>to avoid more of these press problems and stay on good terms with the
>outlets that Fink uses to hurt the company over and over. I already spoke
>with her multiple times and gave her a tour but it wouldn't be right for me
>to pontificate on some of the more fragile financial issues that her piece
>was going to deal with. Appreciate you giving it a shot, it will be fine.
>
>Have a nice couple days here,
>Ryan
UPDATE: Ryan Holiday emails us:
I'd print the stolen emails if I had them too I guess, but would it be fair to give us a photo that isn't a parody done by someone else?
http://americanapparel.net/presscenter/ads/samples/bigs/american_apparel_ad_noise_290808.jpg
Just saying,
Ryan
Since the photo was the biggest problem he had with this post, we changed it for him.
Send an email to Hamilton Nolan, the author of this post, at Hamilton@gawker.com.
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
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