by Claudine Zap It wasn't the sexual harassment lawsuits that did it. (Settled before going to trial.) Or CEO Dov Charney walking American Apparel 's factory floors dressed in his skivvies, and nothing more. (But sometimes less.) The LA-based company that peddles cotton basics and sexually suggestive ad campaigns has gone, as the Guardian notes, from being "the coolest company on the block" to basically bankrupt. The fall was fast.