Brandy Melville: Clothes or a Concept?
Brandy Melville is a fast fashion brand that has used controversial tactics to attract attention and money from teenage girls. A quick scroll through the company’s Instagram reveals what Brandy Melville likes; white, conventionally pretty, and skinny. There are barely any photos of girls of color on their Instagram, most of whom are the same models, just in different posts.
The company is infamous for their “one size fits small” clothing. All their “normal sized” clothing is a size small (or extra small). Meanwhile, any larger size is labeled as oversized. I don’t think you need me to explain why a fashion company marketing towards young girls marking any size over small as oversized is problematic.
Brandy Melville isn’t impervious to public shaming. One compilation video of TikToks poking fun at the company’s exclusivity has over 1.5 million views on YouTube. Despite the seeming dislike of the brand online, Brandy Melville is extremely successful with teenagers.
I would like to give a quick disclaimer before I continue. There is nothing wrong with fitting into their clothes. You shouldn’t feel any shame if a piece of clothing fits you well, no matter your size. The problem with Brandy Melville is that the store does not directly market to people with smaller sizes, but it assumes that “normal” for everyone who wants to shop there means a size small. Even for people with smaller sizes, there is only one small size available for smaller people. In comparison, stores like Lane Bryant explicitly mention that their products are for plus sized people and has sizes 10 to 40 available instead of offering one size to all plus sized women.
The store is popular among teenagers and is hard to resist. Teenage influencers post hauls of them buying or even working for the company, some of which have millions of views. If you went up to any high school student in the US and asked them if they knew what Brandy Melville was, there is a very high chance they would say yes. However, many girls avoid the store out of fear of not fitting into their clothes or because they know they won’t have options in the store. The employees are almost always what is displayed on Brandy’s Instagram: white (or having white appearing features), conventionally pretty, and skinny. The pictures inside are the same. It’s hard not to be intimidated when you walk into the store. The few times I have been in one of the stores, I felt that I didn’t belong in such a store. Keep in mind, I am a size small/medium but am also Pakistani-American with medium toned skin.
Fitting into their clothes means that not only do you get a trendy piece of clothing, but you also have the validation of fitting into Brandy’s ideal customer. I own a sweatshirt and a necklace from Brandy Melville. Some part of me wonders whether I bought the pieces because I genuinely liked them or because I could fit into them and had my own rush of validation.
Brandy Melville is quietly selling their customers more than just fabric; they’re selling the thought of being like the “perfect” girl on their Instagram or being the pretty girl you saw on YouTube. Most teenagers are insecure and full of self-doubt (according to one study, 78% of girls in America 17 and under are unhappy with their bodies), so following what they see others do is natural. In this case, they see the Pinterest boards full of skinny girls and YouTubers their age doing hauls with Brandy’s clothes and aspire to be like them. Buying clothes from Brandy Melville is a way to be more like the girl in the screen.
Boycotting the brand isn’t exactly cut-and-dry. For better or worse, the brand is popular now and will probably be here for a while. Brandy Melville is a fast fashion retailer and carries the latest trends at relatively low prices. If a teenager wants to follow trends, shopping at Brandy is an easy way to do so. Most teenagers don’t outwardly praise their policies, but their clothes are made to be exactly what we teens want.
At what point do we value our ethics over the products we buy? This isn’t a problem with just Brandy Melville. One could go after H&M for their use of child labor, Zara’s promotion of wasteful lifestyles, or Shein’s copying of smaller designers. All these companies have two things in common: being cheap and trendy. Despite all the online loathing of these companies, they remain successful because we the consumers cannot let go of the low prices and trendy pieces promised.
