With a planned bankruptcy auction a little over a month away, Los Angeles-based American Apparel is still looking for a buyer that will keep its store doors open. There is hope for its manufacturing and distribution operations but a big question mark remains over the fate of the retailer’s 110 stores. It is hoping, buyers step up to salvage the rest of its business. However, the only deal the cash-strapped company has in hand is from Canada’s Gildan, which is offering about $66 million for the intellectual property, some wholesale inventory and an option on manufacturing and distribution assets.

A plan to improve online selling didn't pay off, and, at a time when shoppers are going online in greater and greater numbers, American Apparel watched its online sales fall. American Apparel began as a wholesale T-shirt business in 1998. But the hoped-for turnaround of the clothing manufacturer and retail chain—which has long grappled with shrinking sales and an outsize store footprint—did not happen.

In the days leading up to the US bankruptcy filing, American Apparel began winding up its affairs in the UK, Ireland, Germany, Spain, Canada, Japan and Australia, part of a foreign sprawl that included 83 stores.