EXCLUSIVE: 'I was fully comfortable with the photo shoot': Meet the topless Muslim model from American Apparel's controversial new ad

By Misty White Sidell

Published: 11:48 EDT, 9 March 2014 | Updated: 09:09 EDT, 10 March 2014

Maks, the 22-year-old Muslim model who poses topless in American Apparel’s new ‘Made in Bangladesh’ campaign, has opened up about her decision to star in the ad.

‘I was fully comfortable with the photo shoot and went with it,’ Maks, who does not wish to reveal her last name, exclusively tells MailOnline.

The Los Angeles-based retail strategist, who decided to ‘distance’ herself from Islam in high school, says that she saw the campaign as an opportunity to show how ‘all women should feel strong and powerful no matter what their background or what they were taught they had to be.‘

Speaking out: Maks, a 22-year-old retail strategist for American Apparel, says that she was 'fully comfortable' during the photo shoot that led to this 'Made in Bangladesh' advertisement

‘We should all be able to freely express ourselves no matter where we come from,’ she added.

Maks, who poses in only a pair of American Apparel high-waist jeans continued: ‘I fully support the message of the ad. I love and embrace all cultures and religions. I am choosing to be creative and expressing myself freely.’

The campaign, which was released last week and will be featured in Vice’s U.S. and Canadian editions, is intended to speak more to Maks’s Bangladeshi heritage than her religious affiliation – or lack thereof.

Born in Dhaka, Maks immigrated to California with her family when she was four years old.

Garment factory safety standards in her native country provide a disparate comparison to those experienced by seamstresses at her employer’s downtown Los Angeles headquarters.

Bangladesh, the world’s second-largest apparel exporter after China, has of course been at the center of extensive media coverage for the multiple deadly garment factory fires that have erupted across the country in the last 18 months.

On Thursday an additional factory in Dhaka caught fire, though no one was injured as the blaze started after working hours.

American Apparel, which goes to great lengths to promote its Made-in-the-USA sensibilities, pays garment workers wages that range from $12- $14, which they claim are the highest in the world.

These gaping differences have provided Maks with the hope that that American Apparel could ‘influence and help to change the culture’ of future clothing production practices worldwide.

‘Unlike other retail companies that employ sweatshops in countries like Bangladesh, American Apparel has a very unique and ethical approach. We pay our workers fair wages. We give them healthcare and other benefits,’ she said.

Maks declined to comment about her family, friends, and co-workers’ reaction, but like many American Apparel campaigns before, her ad was not released without controversy.

Shock tactics: American Apparel, which is Made-in-the-USA, has a long history of sparking outrage. In February, it gave the mannequins in the window of a Downtown New York store fake pubic hair as a Valentine's day stunt

Twitter user Lingran Kong wrote: ‘American Apparel desperate stunt to make money by using recent Bangladesh factory disasters?’

And Jezebel called the ad a 'stunt', accusing American Apparel of using breasts to promote fair labor practices.

But in writing for ELLE.com Bangladeshi author Tanwi Nandini Islam says: ‘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.

‘This 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.’