Since I moved to New York City 4 years ago, American Apparel has changed from a fringe brand, helmed by a nerdy pederast, with 1 retail location in NYC, to a worldwide juggernaut that sold out for some $300 Million and is now owned by a textile conglomerate. And while American Apparel’s shoddy, grossly overpriced garments become evermore inextricably linked to the skinny jean and skinnier waifs who wear them vainglorious movement in NYC—which spread to LA and then everywhere else in the US—Carhartt quietly keeps churning out bomb-proof, quality, timeless cotton basics.
I first noticed the Carhartt brand in high school. Many of my classmates who could fix a cracked block on a Ford F150 and bag an 8 point buck before lunch on a Saturday, wore Carhartt stuff religiously. Surely they found Carhartt’s clothing functional and durable, but I think they also wore it like a badge. Which is not that dissimilar to the fixed gear wankers in NYC wearing American Apparel. The difference being, one badge says, “I know how to fix a bike” and the other says “my well-off parents’ monthly check bought me this stupid bike.”
I’ll chill with the ad hominem, overplayed hipster attacks and get down to the question at hand: Which is better, an American Apparel or Carhartt zip-up sweatshirt?
To answer this question, we could talk about how your average Carhartt sweatshirt will last about 5 times as long as an American Apparel sweatshirt, or, I could say that a Carhartt zip-up sweatshirt is $10-15 cheaper than its American Apparel counterpart. But I wont. Instead, let us use this simple exercise.
Who bodes better for the future of America:
This guy.
Or, this guy.
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