When “One Size Fits All” Brandy Melville Doesn’t Fit at All
By: Mason Miller
Tags: Retail, Fat Shaming, Brandy, Brandy Melville, Inclusion

Photo by Ellie Enchantée on Unsplash

Most girls can say at some point in their teenage years they have been to the retail store Brandy Melville. A large percentage of those girls probably have also bought a piece of merchandise from there. This is considered the “normal” in pop-culture of America, Italy, Great Britain, and many other modern countries. However, the clothing retail store Brandy Melville is insensitive to the greater population because they lack diversity in sizing, and ethnic backgrounds of their models and demographic. This is why we should boycott this brand.

In 2015 a clothing retail store Forever 21 filed to sue Brandy Melville due to copyright infringement. Brandy Melville’s $29 red printed Abigail dress had the same pattern and print of a Forever 21’s shirt, romper, and shorts. Forever 21 is even claiming that Brandy Melville knew what they were doing. “Without permission, Defendants intentionally and knowingly reproduced, copied, displayed, manufactured, derived, and distributed products embodying colorable imitations of Forever 21’s Design,” the complaint states.

One reason that we should boycott Brandy is because of the way that they make teens that don’t fit into their clothes feel. One day when I was at the mall with two of my friends, my friends wanted to go into Brandy so I agreed. Once we entered, I discovered that the clothes were cute, but that they were only “one size fits most”, when I was picking out some clothes that I liked the look of a teen about my age who was working there came up to me and told me I better try those on. I knew that that was a fat shame and that they were saying that I wouldn’t fit into the clothes. I did it anyway because she made me second guess myself and my size. When I tried them on they fit, but I didn’t look like how it looked on the models. This made me feel horrible, to the point where when I got home I started crying, thinking about my weight and how “fat” I looked. I was wrong though, I was a healthy body weight for my age and height and I was very healthy and athletic. But I didn’t even see how good I actually looked, I was so concerned about how much I didn’t look like the models and how I couldn’t “fit” into Brandy Melville. This whole problem led me to periods of fasting and eating. Just to fit in and be able to wear Brandy Melville. Having unhealthy eating habits eventually caused me to be more unhealthy than I started with.

The reason Brandy Melville is still supported and loved is that most teenage girls who shop at Brandy don’t recognize the problem the company poses with their lack of diversity in sizing and in their models, continuing to allow this generation of young girls to be ignorant with these issues. Even if teens recognize this problem, most of them will say that they don’t support the company but still shops there. Doing this makes you look like a hypocrite, and makes me wonder if some teens would look past the tumbler and aesthetic ways, and see what true underlying diversity problems there are in the Brandy Melville company. Not only are the greater population being affected by this brand, its own employees are complaining, a quick scan on Glassdoor, a review site for companies, reveals that hundreds of former Brandy employees have complained of discriminatory practices around hiring, firing, and pay. They say, “Your pay rate is 100% determined by your appearance,” wrote one woman, who worked as a salesgirl at the Westwood location for over three years. “You will get fired for gaining weight or cutting your hair,” wrote another. “You will not get hired at a Brandy store if you’re black.” Said the third. All these employees did, was changed their appearance. This made the company fire you because you no longer fit into their ideal body image. This body image is called a “Brandy Girl”. A Brandy girl is 14–15 years old, Californian, blonde, thin, and popular, spending most of her time on the beach and with friends. The brandy girl fits into their main focus line for social media, modeling, and employees. In fact, social media is their way to advertise, they find the classic brandy girl on the street or shopping in their stores and ask to take a picture of them, this is how Brandy Melville gets new ideas and how they get their social media pictures to post. Also the one size fits most is affecting most of the girl/teen population too, nearly 70 percent of girls in grades five through 12 said magazine images influence their ideals of a perfect body. In so-called “pro-anorexia” forums, posters write about watching fashion shows and looking through magazines for “thinspiration.”

As you can see the clothing retail store Brandy Melville is causing way too many problems, including being insensitive to the greater population with their lack of diversity for sizing, and ethnic backgrounds of their models and demographic. This is having a true impact for young girls and teens who feel like they have to fit into Brandy Melville clothing to feel popular or to fit in with the group. Thank You.