Become a model • Satmar Hasid presenter to fashion company

American Fashion Company has decided on a surprising marketing step: in its commercials a Satmar Hasid is seen as a model for the company's apparel products.

The company, American Apparel, chose to incorporate as part of its Internet campaign, Yoel Weisshaus, a Satmar Hasid 32, a student at Barzan University in New Jersey.

In photographs for the campaign, Weisshaus is seen as a chassid - peyos, streimel and beard - but the clothes he wears are all the company's products.

Newspaper Ma'ariv, which brings the story quoted explanations from the company: "Meet Yoel Weisshaus," reads the official website of American Apparel, "He is a Hasidic Jew who grew up in a Yiddish-speaking home and studied in yeshiva in Brooklyn from a young age."

"Yoel is a simple man with chutzpah," explained the fashion company site selection presenter. "This is a talented guy who represents himself in court because he cannot afford to retain an attorney in the lawsuit, which has not yet ended. Yoel has an accent because English is not his native language, but he is now struggling to learn to read and write English."

In an interview with JTA news agency Weisshaus is asked how an ultra-Orthodox family from Satmar agreed that their son be filmed as a model for an American fashion company, and he replied: "If they had a problem with something, then its with other models."