Brandy Melville has recently come under fire for their minuscule clothing sizes, as they should. It's completely unacceptable to exclude people from purchasing your clothing because of their body shape/size.
Brandy Melville has also become a big trend lately, and people with larger body types should not be excluded from following this trend.
First of all, from a capitalistic standpoint, it is illogical to cater only to very small girls. Only a tiny percentage of potential customers will fit that physical description. As a business, they're losing billions of dollars.
From a social standpoint, it's absolutely unacceptable.
Here are a few examples directly from the Brandy Melville website for reference.
(via Brandy Melville, Skylar Tank, $14)
As you can see with this screenshot of the listing on their website, the only option is extra small / small. I did not crop the image or alter it in any way, and if you'd like to see for yourself, all links will be at the bottom of this post. I'd also like to add that this was the first top I clicked on; I did not seek out a shirt only available in XS / S.
(via Brandy Melville, Lennon Top, $25)
A big problem I have with this listing is that it's labelled as "oversized".
Here's the original description. The problem with listing this shirt as oversized is that it's a regular size for someone with even a slightly larger body or someone with a different body shape than the "brandy body".
Just because something isn't your size, doesn't mean it's "oversized".
That's damaging to young girls' and negatively affects their mindset about their body as well as other people's bodies. Even older teenage girls can be negatively influenced by the wording used by Brandy and other similar companies.
Additionally the only "size" this shirt was available in was cropped. This means that even if someone wanted to purchase a Brandy shirt and this would fit them, they could only buy the cropped version- effectively meaning that the top wouldn't fit them after all.
Moving on from sizing, Brandy Melville treats their employees badly.
A former employee of Brandy Melville on the corporate level left a one star review of the company on Glassdoor, writing that "this is probably the most unethical company, right above sweat shops".
They also wrote that "[Brandy Melville] focuses on hiring thin, blonde girls because that's what gets the most likes on Instagram (their sole source of marketing)."
Brandy does not have an official marketing team, nor do they hire professional models. All of their exposure comes from sponsoring influencers and their instagram account (which has almost 4 million followers).
All of their instagram pictures are images of customers chosen to model for them.
Here's their most recent post as an example.
Additionally, the Glassdoor reviewer wrote "[They] will fire you if you gain weight, cut [your] hair, etc."
Many other Glassdoor reviews, both positive and negative, listed being unable to sit down, Mean Girls-like/ demanding environment, and full of cliques as a con.
Their products are also far from ethically sourced.
Brandy is undoubtedly the epitome of fast fashion. They may not employ sweatshop workers (I could not either prove or disprove this), but the majority of their clothing is cheaply made from low quality fabric.
Brandy has also been accused, as well as sued, for stealing artwork from independent artists. Photographer Estevan Oriel sued Brandy Melville and H&M in 2013 for using images copyrighted by him.
After reading this article, will you continue to support Brandy? Personally, I would rather not support a company with questionable morals and ethics, but that's up to you.
Links:
Lennon Top: https://www.brandymelvilleusa.com/lennon-top-1025-sd480.html
Skylar Tank: https://www.brandymelvilleusa.com/skylar-tank-686-psj-290.html
Glassdoor Review: https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-Brandy-Melville-RVW7605292.htm
Instagram post: https://www.instagram.com/p/CAvgFnzAF4n/
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