There have been rumblings of trouble at American Apparel for quite a while now, and so far the vertically-integrated hipster retailer has defied expectations, weathering the storm. But with its stock dipping lower than a shiny Maillot-V , it may actually soon be forced to close its doors, according to Bloomberg BusinessWeek . Bloggers have taken this opportunity to poke fun at American Apparel’s most ridiculous offerings—the spandex monokini , the assless tights . Slate ‘s own Lauren Bans wondered about the fate of the gold-lamé legging in a post-Apparelyptic world. How, indeed, would one go about procuring golden gams should the retailer go out of business?
If you’re looking for gold lamé leggings, you can stock up at Halloween—fall fashion starts at Costume Craze this year. Or at Amiclubwear , where the leggings come helpfully pre-slashed and paired with a matching halter, for that goddess-scraped-a-few boulders-on-her-tumble-from-Olympus-and-into-a-70s-rollerdisco look that I’m sure you’ve heard about from all your most fashionable friends. And they’re a bargain at $9.99, even accounting for the missing fabric.
Or you might want to take this opportunity to reconsider your choice of legging fabric. Lamé is a type of brocade, the formal fabric of kings and queens from Henry VIII to RuPaul . Regal, yes, but perhaps not suited for everyday wear; Wikipedia, a reliable source of fashion advice, notes that “an issue with lamé is that it is subject to seam or yarn slippage, making it less than ideal for garments with frequent usage.” There are plenty of auriferous alternatives. For gold polyester leggings, try Victoria’s Secret, which has a cloud-print pair, gold-leaf on black, or Target (only $12.99! ), or Viktor Viktoria . If you’re not married to gold—and isn’t platinum the matrimonial metal of choice these days, anyhow?—you may want to let your eye wander to Viktor Viktoria’s purple sequin zebra print .
And if, forced from the American Apparel teat, you choose to invest in leggings that will withstand the test of time, there are higher-end options: Balenciaga famously made a $100,000 mirrored pair, donned by Beyonce at the 2007 BET awards . (Exact material inderminate, but presumably there was some fool’s gold spun in somewhere during the process.) For a more sensible purchase, go with the $1,020 intarsia -ed silk and wool Alexander McQueens.
So with or without American Apparel, leggings devotees can shine on. Acolytes of the gold lamé bodysuit, however, may be on their own .
