Hannah Rappleye, an 18-year-old sophomore at New School University who worked as a sales associate in an American Apparel store in New York for about three months this year, said she had no complaints and left her job on her own volition last May. But she said she would never seek to work at American Apparel again.
Mr. Charney's first words to her during one of his visits, she said, were "You look hot today." And when she expressed her objections to a sexually explicit picture on a store wall, her colleagues laughed it off, she said.
"At first they make you feel special," Ms. Rappleye said. "If you were chosen to work for the company, that meant that you were attractive enough to sell sex successfully."
"But after a while," she said, "it feels disgusting."