American Apparel Celeb of the Day

American Apparel Celeb of the Day: Nancy Upton, the woman who mockingly entered and won American Apparel’s “Next BIG Thing” contest, was recently offered a tour of the clothing company’s headquarters in Los Angeles.

The offer came after American Apparel told her she did not, in fact, win the contest, and the publicity from the whole mess landed her on the Today show.

During her tour, Upton sat down with the team that created the “Next BIG Thing” contest to talk about how the clothing industry should target and treat plus-size women.

Upton writes on her Tumblr:

I was very happy with the way the meeting went. Despite the icy feelings from some of the women (which, I mean, are pretty understandable in a personal context), I felt like we had a really interesting discussion about marketing to plus-size women (hint: they’re made of flesh and blood just like you, market to them the same way you market to everyone, unless of course your entire marketing strategy has your company hemorrhaging money) and about where the contest went wrong.

At one point towards the end of the contest discussion, one employee looked like she was going to cry. Say what you want about the advertising, CEO and product (Lord knows I do), there are strong, passionate people behind this company, who I truly think mean the best in what they do and how they operate as a business.

However, once Upton returned home to Texas and exchanged a few emails with Iris Alonzo, the Creative Director that gave Upton the tour, she received one that said:

Marsha and I were trying to remember what we even talked about, and amidst all of the late night fun and cream puffs (compounded by the fact that we couldn’t re-watch the video of the meeting), we can hardly remember what was said at all.

Obviously, Upton’s visit did a lot to change the way the retailer will sell clothing to plus-size women in the future. Upton ends the matter by saying:

My perception about this company was basically “they know not what they do.” Then I met a lot of them, and it changed to, “they know not what they do, but boy are they trying to fix that.” Now, it’s somewhere along the lines of “how can you possibly not understand what you do?” I hope they figure it out.

I wish the people I met all the best, and for me, this subject matter is closed.

[Jezebel]