‘Brandy Hellville & the Cult of Quick Vogue’: 5 Takeaways
The clothes retailer Brandy Melville is thought for promoting diminutive, single-size items well-liked amongst Gen Z: linen brief shorts, heart-print camisoles and sweatshirts printed with the phrase “Malibu.”
Behind its Cali-girl aesthetic is a enterprise that mistreats teenage staff and cashes in on younger ladies’s insecurities, in keeping with “Brandy Hellville & the Cult of Quick Vogue,” a documentary launched on Tuesday on HBO.
The documentary intersperses former staff’ accounts of racism and dimension discrimination whereas working in its shops with a broader take a look at the labor and environmental prices of the fast-fashion business. The filmmakers mentioned Stephan Marsan, the corporate’s mysterious chief govt, didn’t reply to a number of requests for remark.
Eva Orner, the documentary’s director, mentioned in an interview final week that it was a problem to get former staff on digital camera as a result of so many had been terrified of the corporate. Those that had been included had been recognized by solely their first names. “I’ve carried out quite a lot of stuff in conflict zones, and with refugees and actually life-or-death conditions, and other people have been extra comfy being on digital camera,” she mentioned.
Ms. Orner, an Australian who gained an Academy Award for the documentary “Taxi to the Darkish Facet,” had not heard of Brandy Melville earlier than producers talked about the corporate to her in 2022 as a possible topic of investigation. The extra she discovered, the extra she was disturbed by the model’s cultlike following amongst teenage women, who see it flaunted by celebrities like Kaia Gerber and Kendall Jenner.
“These are the values which can be on this T-shirt: It’s racism, it’s antisemitism, it’s exploitation,” Ms. Orner mentioned. “I’m hoping mother and father watch this and are horrified.”
Listed below are 5 of the key claims made within the documentary.
The corporate’s enterprise mannequin is murky.
In some respects, Brandy Melville is just like Zara, H&M and different retailers working within the fast-fashion business, which places a premium on low-cost clothes manufactured on fast pattern cycles. However its company construction is unusually “chaotic, messy and unclear,” Ms. Orner mentioned.
Every Brandy Melville retailer is owned by a unique shell firm, whereas the trademark for Brandy Melville is owned by a Swiss firm, Kate Taylor, the creator of a 2021 Enterprise Insider investigation into the corporate that knowledgeable a lot of the documentary, mentioned within the movie. And regardless of main a model that constructed its success largely on Instagram, Mr. Marsan has subsequent to no on-line presence.
Former Brandy Melville employees members mentioned within the documentary that executives would generally ask to purchase the garments the workers had been sporting in order that the model may replicate them. The corporate has been accused on-line of stealing designs from unbiased designers and was sued by Ceaselessly 21 for copyright infringement in 2016. (The case resulted in a confidential settlement, in keeping with courtroom paperwork.)
It has stood by its ‘one dimension matches most’ coverage.
The corporate gives the majority of its clothes in only one very small dimension, which it describes as “one dimension matches most.” Mr. Marsan noticed the coverage as a approach to preserve the model unique, in keeping with former executives interviewed within the documentary, and criticism of the coverage as affirmation that the technique was working.
The movie contains social media posts from clients saying they misplaced weight to suit into the model’s clothes. A number of former staff described fighting consuming problems whereas working at Brandy Melville, and several other mentioned the strain to be skinny whereas working there affected their shallowness.
One former worker mentioned within the documentary that working within the retailer made her hate her physique and really feel typically insecure.
Former staff described discriminatory hiring practices.
The corporate went out of its approach to rent skinny, white ladies who had been typically recruited on the spot whereas buying in its shops, staff mentioned within the documentary. Some mentioned they had been required to take day by day full-body images that had been despatched to Mr. Marsan, who generally fired them if he didn’t like the best way they appeared.
White staff had been extra prone to be assigned to the gross sales ground, whereas folks of colour had been positioned in much less seen roles within the inventory room, in keeping with three former staff.
Former executives of Brandy Melville filed two lawsuits containing “critical allegations of racism” that had been denied by the corporate in preliminary courtroom filings, mentioned Ms. Taylor, the reporter. One of many executives mentioned within the documentary that his retailer in Toronto was closed by Mr. Marsan as a result of it was frequented by folks of colour.
Firm executives exchanged racist and antisemitic messages in a gaggle chat.
Senior management shared Hitler memes, pornographic photographs and racist jokes in a gaggle chat referred to as “Brandy Melville gags,” in keeping with Ms. Taylor and two former executives interviewed within the documentary. One screenshot proven within the movie incorporates a skeletal girl sporting a sash that reads “Miss Auschwitz, 1943.”
Mr. Marsan, his brother, retailer homeowners and members of the corporate’s manufacturing crew in Italy had been all within the chat, in keeping with one former retailer proprietor.
The group chat featured closely in Ms. Taylor’s Enterprise Insider article. “The evil genius of Brandy is that when this exposé got here out, they didn’t do something” apart from briefly disable feedback on their Instagram web page, Ms. Orner mentioned. “They simply went on, enterprise as common.”
The corporate could replicate broader patterns of exploitation in quick vogue.
Ms. Orner argued that Brandy Melville was additionally a case research in the best way quick vogue can exploit staff and contribute to environmental waste.
The corporate’s provide chain is opaque, however a lot of its clothes is manufactured at a manufacturing facility in Prato, Italy, that employs Chinese language immigrants, Ms. Orner mentioned. Prato is residence to a number of factories for fast-fashion corporations, a few of which have exploitative labor practices, Matteo Biffoni, town’s mayor, mentioned within the documentary. (He didn’t touch upon whether or not this was true of Brandy Melville’s manufacturing facility.)
The filmmakers additionally traveled to Ghana, the place undesirable clothes objects from the US and Europe pile up in heaps and clog waterways. Brandy Melville’s enterprise mannequin entails churning out cheap, fashionable objects which can be prone to be discarded on this manner, Ms. Orner mentioned, and transport them out to influencers in bulk, in change free of charge promotion.
“You possibly can’t make a movie about vogue with out exhibiting the exploitation of just about everybody, from the employees, by to the fashions, by to the retailers to the shoppers,” Ms. Orner mentioned. “Everybody’s being exploited.”
Alain Delaquérière contributed analysis.
