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"  Just when I thought I would be off the grid this month in my motherland, Bangladesh, American Apparel released its latest ad. Maks, a topless model/merchandiser, stands in a classic dead-eyed AA pose. She&amp;#039;s wearing the High Waist Jean, in case you hadn&amp;#039;t noticed. The phrase &amp;quot;Made in Bangladesh&amp;quot; covers her, punctuated by hints of nipple. I&amp;#039;m not a prude, or a hater. My problem is not with this half-dressed beautiful young woman. (Honestly, I probably wouldn&amp;#039;t mind having my youth emblazoned in an iconic ad campaign if given the opportunity.) Related: American Apparel Releases Controversial New Ad (NSFW) Unless, of course, the words &amp;quot;Made in Bangladesh&amp;quot; were branded on my breasts. Born in Dhaka, Maks left at the age of four and was brought up in California in a religious Muslim household. She shed her religious upbringing, to find her own path. This sentence\u2014&amp;quot;She doesn&amp;#039;t feel the need to identify herself as an American or a Bengali and is not content to fit her life into anyone else&amp;#039;s conventional narrative&amp;quot;\u2014is total BS. Related: One Photographer&amp;#039;s Brilliant Take On American Apparel Ads Isn&amp;#039;t this exactly what American Apparel is doing\u2014telling us Maks is &amp;quot;Made in Bangladesh&amp;quot;\u2014offering their own reductive, conventional-as-hell narrative? Seeing this ad is jarring while I&amp;#039;m in Bangladesh. While sitting in a two-hour traffic jam (par for the course here), I&amp;#039;m inundated with billboards selling cell phones, cricket games, skin cream. But it&amp;#039;s unthinkable here for a woman to be topless in a billboard ad\u2014there just isn&amp;#039;t that level of risqu\u00E9\u2014yet. By sexualizing a phrase reserved for labeling clothes, we see exploitation at its most provocative.  The author American Apparel is playing on the sexuality of a young Bangladeshi woman&amp;#039;s body, but that&amp;#039;s just a pretext. To me, this is a jab on Bangladesh&amp;#039;s garment sector. Composed of young Bangladeshi female workers, around the same age as Maks, disasters like the 2013 Rana Plaza factory collapse and the 2012 Tazreen factory fire have made death and exploitation synonymous with the industry. Fast fashion is big business, and many U.S. and European retailers, like Walmart, Gap, Joe Fresh, and Mango have huge stakes in the low-cost labor. Yet cutting corners has been fatal. While Maks might&amp;#039;ve been made in Bangladesh, the clothes on her bottom most definitely are not. We&amp;#039;re told that the High Waist Jean is crafted by &amp;quot;23 skilled American workers in Downtown Los Angeles, all of whom are paid a fair wage and have access to basic benefits such as healthcare.&amp;quot; How wonderful that 23 people made these garments. In Bangladesh, 3.6 million workers make up the garment workforce, and their work makes up $18 billion in annual readymade garment exports. These young women are the backbone of Bangladesh&amp;#039;s growing economy. Workers who attempt to unionize face intimidation and sexual harassment. There have been other effects too. Young women are delaying marriage and childbirth to work. While they are earning meager pay, they&amp;#039;re earning steady paychecks, which they use to help support their family or their own education. Things are always more complex than they seem. So, just as its easy to write off Maks&amp;#039; ad as exploitative, I do commend American Apparel for its emphasis on fair wages\u2014between $12-$14 for workers living in California, which they claim is the highest pay in the world for manufacturing apparel basics. Because it&amp;#039;s made in the USA, less money is spent on shipping, fuel, and middlemen. Maks is as Made in America as American Apparel. Her unabashed nudity is a tacit reminder\u2014this is what American Apparel looks like. This is what our fantasy of what Made in Bangladesh looks like. Not a poor, underpaid, overworked young woman making you a $5 shirt for 30 cents an hour. This ad has little to do with the woman in front of us, and everything to do with the Bangladeshi female garment worker who remains invisible. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elle.com/culture/news/a15319/response-to-american-apparel-bangladesh-ad/?click=main_sr>