An eccentric clothing company founder who promotes a freewheeling lifestyle, Dov Charney of American Apparel, is seeking a gag order against a former employee and the lawyers who filed her lawsuit claiming sexual harassment. Mr. Charney’s attorneys made the request in a motion filed this week with the Los Angeles judge handling the case brought by Mary Nelson, who alleges that Mr. Charney created a “reign of sexual terror” at the company by using vulgar terms to refer to women and parading around the office in his underwear.

“On the one hand, he’s the champion of free expression and the First Amendment, but on the other hand he’s going to try his damndest to shut me up,” one of Ms. Nelson’s lawyers, Keith Fink, said. “It’s so ironic …. I thought the guy has nothing to hide.”

In the gag motion, Mr. Charney contends that Mr. Fink is poisoning the potential jury pool in the case by making “unsubstantiated and prejudicial” statements such as a comment to Business Week in 2005 that the work atmosphere at American Apparel “makes Animal House look like choir practice.”

Judge John Shook recently ordered that the lawsuit, filed in 2005, go to trial later this month. He has not ruled on the proposed gag order.

American Apparel promotes its youth-oriented clothes as “sweatshop-free.” The firm has been hailed for manufacturing in America at a time when nearly all clothing sold here is imported. However, Ms. Nelson and other critics contend Mr. Charney brought too much of the firm’s sexually charged image into the workplace.