American Apparel to Close 8 More Stores

It’s a shitty Christmas indeed for American Apparel—for factory workers, and upper management, and ousted CEO/founder Dov Charney, and nearly everyone even remotely involved with this shuddering mess of a company.

According to Women’s Wear Daily, American Apparel, which filed for bankruptcy in October, has asked a judge for permission to close an additional eight underperforming stores. This includes their Echo Park location, American Apparel’s first U.S. store, and brings planned closures since the bankruptcy announcement to a total of 17 (out of about 230 globally).

Charney, for his part, is still hard at work attempting to regain control of the company; earlier this month Bloomberg reported that Charney has hired an investment bank to help him “evaluate options” for a potential bid to buy the retailer, despite the fact that he can reportedly no longer afford a lawyer. No word yet how that cool plan is panning out.

CORRECTION, 12/26: Since the company is no longer publicly traded, the term “shareholders” has been omitted from this article. An American Apparel spokesperson has requested that we include the following statement:

“These store closures are a next step in implementing our previously announced turnaround plan, which includes closing under-performing locations and investing in new stores in promising areas.”