Simplistic, small, and exclusive. Brandy Melville began taking over girls' wardrobes in the 2010s and still has young girls in a chokehold. The brand is known for having "one size" clothes, that only fit the thinnest girls, and having basic designs. Brandy was all over Tumblr in the 2010s, made girls feel superior to those who didn’t wear it, and created a community and lifestyle that prided itself on its different kind of exclusivity. HBO recently released a documentary covering the dark side of the famous brand, Brandy Hellville & the Cult of Fast Fashion. In the introduction, someone says there is anti-semitism, sexism, and racism coursing through the veins of the people who run the company. The brand falls under the category of fast fashion to an insane extent and the documentary thoroughly explores the different negative effects of fast fashion. Before we dive deep into the controversial brand, I would like to give you a backstory.

The brand is known for having a beachy, soft, feminine look. It was all over Tumblr and Pinterest as outfit inspiration. The girls were the ‘tiny, ideal size’ and influenced teen and pre-teen girls who wanted to be a part of the ‘exclusive’ community which was purposefully part of the business plan. Buying a plain gray t-shirt from Brandy allowed them to join the ‘Brandy Melville lifestyle’. ‘Fashion is identity, especially for teenage girls’, and Brandy captured that the most out of any brand. They hired a lot of ‘it-girl’ influencers who posted on YouTube, Instagram, Tumblr, etc. A lot of the photographers were teenagers taking photos of teenagers which were uploaded on several different platforms. Through the YouTube videos, these girls were watching how the photoshoots work which also worked well as a promotion for the brand. Youtubers who didn’t work with the brand would still talk about it whether it was in a haul video or something else. In the documentary, there is a clip of Hannah Meloche from one of her videos saying she hopes she gets noticed by Brandy because she was wearing one of their tops. Brandy Melville doesn't have promotions besides social media. One of the women in the documentary says that it’s impossible to talk about Brandy without talking about social media. Their Instagram is full of skinny girls wearing their simple pieces but nothing more than that. A lot of these pictures were taken behind one of their stores against the iconic white brick wall. Brandy became a figure online. TikTok has allowed young girls to create their own real content for the first time without any restrictions and can reach an international audience. They are posting outfits of the day, get ready with me, and other kinds of fashion and beauty-related videos and a lot of their outfits include something by Brandy Melville. This has helped the brand be recognized and successful internationally.

Though there has been a lot of inclusivity in the fashion industry, but Brandy has not conformed to that idea. While the business hires people of color as models and store employees, there is heavy discrimination in the workplace. Some former employees spoke about their experiences working at Brandy. A couple of girls talked about how they recognized racism in the workplace. The white, popular girls were in the front of the store, interacting with customers. The girls of color were sometimes behind the register but were mainly in the back dealing with inventory. No one felt like they could speak up about it to the managers. Later in the film, you learn about several legal cases Brandy Melville is involved in and they didn’t deny firing people because of their race. Kate Taylor, a writer for Insider, was featured throughout the documentary. She wrote a piece around the time the scandal started the strike Brandy titled ‘Brandy Melville’s CEO doesn’t want Black people to wear the brand’s clothing, according to ex-store owner.’ More ex-employees were speaking out after the article was published. Not only does the brand discriminate against people of color, but also people of different sizes. Like I said earlier, Brandy Melville only has ‘one size’ clothes which implied ‘one size fits all’ which then changed to ‘one size fits most.’ Still not necessarily true. Their clothes fit most of their customers. Some of the girls who spoke out in the documentary were open about their eating disorders while working there and the pressure they felt to be as skinny as possible because they were the faces of the Brandy Melville storefronts. There were videos online of girls trying to lose weight to fit into Brandy Melville, and they would include the name in the title. Gen Z wouldn’t put up with a brand like this, but we are the target audience, so what’s the deal?

Now we get to the weird stuff… but first, you may be wondering where the name came from. It was based on a fictional story with two characters named Brandy and Melville. Since the name doesn’t come from a real person, who started Brandy Melville? Kate Taylor had a difficult time finding information on the founder, CEO, or even a mission statement. It turns out each store is owned by a different shell company which makes it harder to find who runs the actual brand. Brandy Melville is a trademark owned by a larger Swiss company. Eventually, Taylor discovered Stephan Marsan, the owner. He is Italian and doesn’t speak any English. One of the anonymous store owners, played by an actor in the documentary, said ‘the vibe was good’ with Stephan. Jessy is his right-hand man. He runs the Brandy Melville Instagram which, like I said before, is full of skinny girls in mostly tight clothes. Creepy that’s it’s run by a bald man with braces. No one has ever been sure of what Jessy’s official title is, but it turns out no one in the company seems to have one. It seems way too casual of a company for how successful it is. There were some clips from the inside of the headquarters and it was so unorganized. It’s definitely not a conventional brand. Which leads to another disaster in the brand. Fast fashion plays into what I wrote about before in my piece ‘Our Need For Speed’, but we’ll get into that more in part 2. Brandy Melville wasn’t popular in Italy when they were making t-shirts that said things like ‘stressed / depressed / but well dressed’. Teen girls weren’t very interested so they switched to a surfer, natural, chill vibe and started gaining attention from their target audience. Over time it has grown tremendously and is ‘an incredibly successful business. Abercrombie looked into buying brandy and their bankers were shocked by how successful the business was financially.’ Now, it has grown into the empire it is today.

This is only half of what the movie covered! There’s more to come in the future and it just gets more shocking. Films like this tell us the real stories of what’s happening behind closed doors in the world of people with power and it is fascinating.