American Apparel to Lay Off 180 Employees

American Apparel chief executive officer Paula Schneider will eliminate about 180 jobs in her bid to turn around the struggling Los Angeles-based firm. The majority of those jobs are manufacturing positions located in Southern California. “We are disappointed that we had to make this very difficult decision, however, this is a turnaround,” Schneider said. “This change is meant to restore the financial health of American Apparel, which under previous management, saw losses of more than $300 million over the past five years. This is a very sad day. It is very challenging to go down this route, but we have to conduct business differently in order to thrive.” A spokeswoman for the company declined to say whether additional cuts are expected, saying it was an “ongoing process assessing what the business needs are, depending on inventory.” The 180 positions are less than 2 percent of the company’s overall workforce. It’s yet another hiccup for Schneider, who was tapped to right the business in January. The company recently disclosed that the Securities and Exchange Commission launched an investigation into the events surrounding the firing of founder and former ceo Dov Charney. Charney, who was fired from the company last year, has filed a lawsuit in

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Sophie Rochas Writes Book on Father Marcel Rochas

Sophie Rochas was a daddy’s girl, but her father, designer Marcel Rochas, unfortunately died suddenly of an aneurysm when he was 53 and she was 10. Her relationship with her mother, La belle Hélène, was much shakier, and Hélène sued to block the publication of her daughter’s new book, “Marcel Rochas: Designing French Glamour” (Groupe Flammarion). After Hélène died in 2011, the lawsuit was rendered moot. “It’s completely unfair that he was as forgotten as he was until now,” she says of her father. “The name Rochas is without the Christian name. It’s nothing against my mother; it really has been associated with my father — beauty, elegance that made him famous for years all over the world. I tried as much as possible to be fair.” She writes in the book that he is “a ‘famous unknown,’” adding, “Therein lies a deep injustice that needs to be redressed, and a mystery. My father is numbered among those dead poets whose work has dissolved like footprints in the sand. Yet, it was a huge body of work, developed over 30 years, thanks to two couture houses, hundreds of employees, several thousand designs, a cinema department and thriving accessories and perfume subsidiaries,

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