Dov Charney

Dov Charney, founder and former CEO of American Apparel, is suing his former business—which fired him in December—for $40 million in damages.

Dov Charney, CEO of American Apparel, had strong words for his fellow apparel industry peers following the tragic collapse of a textile factory in Bangladesh that left more than 800 dead, calling such outsourced manufacturing "morally offensive" and unsustainable.

American Apparel CEO Dov Charney was in New York recently and we got a chance to speak to him. We wanted to know what he would do to fix JCPenney.

There are similarities between JCP's situation and AA's. Like JCP now, AA's sales a couple of years ago were in a downward spiral. Like JCP, the company was losing cash and needed a ton of new financing to avoid bankruptcy.

Charney, of course, engineered a turnaround at American Apparel and the company is now profitable and growing topline sales. Notably, he did so without changing or rebranding the company.

American Apparel Inc. reported that comparable sales increased 8 percent, including a 5 percent increase in comparable store sales for its retail store channel and a 26 percent increase in net sales for its online channel. Wholesale net sales decreased 7 percent for the month of March primarily due to one less shipping day in March 2013 than in March 2012.

American Apparel Inc. released financial results for its third quarter ended Sept. 30, 2012. Chairman and CEO Dov Charney weighed in on the company’s encouraging performance.

He looks forward to the future as American Apparel improves store productivity and makes aggressive moves to grow its online and wholesale businesses.