A new documentary will expose the horrific underbelly of hugely popular clothing brand Brandy Melville, as a slew of former employees spoke out about the horrific racism and exploitation they suffered while working for the ‘fast fashion cult’.
Brandy Melville was founded in Italy in the 1980s and opened its first store in the US in 2009 – and almost immediately it was a huge success, becoming a style staple among teens in the 2010s.
But while thousands of young girls clamored for the trendy and chic clothes, behind the scenes, workers now claimed they were being subjected to rampant ‘discrimination based on race, gender and size’.
An upcoming HBO documentary – called Brandy Hellville & The Cult of Fast Fashion, premiering April 9 – will now take a look at how the brand became one of the largest clothing companies in the world, while reportedly experiencing an extremely ‘toxic work culture’, unbeknownst to the loyal and growing fan base.
A new documentary will expose the gruesome underbelly of the wildly popular clothing brand Brandy Melville
A slew of former employees spoke out about the horrific racism and exploitation they suffered while working for the ‘fast fashion cult’ in the upcoming HBO documentary
The documentary, titled Brandy Hellville & The Cult of Fast Fashion, premieres April 9
The teaser for the documentary pointed out that the brand used social media campaigns that heavily revolved around “teenage girls taking pictures of each other.”
In a trailer for the new film, an ex-employee recalled becoming obsessed with Brandy Melville after noticing that “everyone was wearing it at school.”
“I first heard about Brandy Melville in seventh grade, everyone wore it at school,” she explained.
“But behind the curtain, no one has any idea that a guy wearing sweatpants and sneakers was running the Instagram that all these teenage girls were fanning out over,” one ex-staffer explains.
“I walked into the store and bought a star necklace and I felt so cool and accepted.”
But she and many others explained how ‘behind the curtain’ things were not as they seemed.
In particular, the teaser pointed out that the brand used social media campaigns that heavily revolved around “teenage girls taking pictures of each other.”
“Nobody has any idea that a guy wearing sweatpants and sneakers ran the Instagram that all these teenage girls were fanning out over,” another former employee explains. “This place wasn’t your conventional clothing company.”
Another woman claimed in the trailer that Brandy Melville “only hired skinny white girls” for his stores while using people of color in his factories.
“The girls went to the factory where the clothes were made and picked out the things they liked,” she claimed.
Another woman claimed in the trailer that Brandy Melville “only hired skinny white girls” for his stores while using people of color in the factories
Others said they had to take photos of the outfits they wore every day at work to send to the “company founder” for approval
The trailer also teased an employee discussing “text messages between Brandy Melville’s upper management” that contained “the most vile, sexual, racist jokes possible.”
“And then you go into the pantry and you see all the people working there, and they’re not white.”
Others said they had to take photos of the outfits they wore to work every day to send to the “company founder” for approval.
While the trailer didn’t reveal any other information on the subject, it also teased an employee discussing “text messages between Brandy Melville’s upper management” that contained “the most vile, sexual, racist jokes possible.”
“Brandy Melville tapped into a teenage girl’s worst impulses,” someone else said. “Finally someone is talking about it.”
In 2020, Callie, a former employee of Brandy Melville, went viral on TikTok after accusing the company of being “fatphobic” and “racist” in a series of explosive videos.
“My second week at work, someone comes in and says, ‘Hello, I want to work here,’” she recalled in one of her TikToks.
“And I’m like, “Okay, give me your resume and let me show it to my boss.” And she hands me her resume and I go in the back and my boss looks at it for half a second and she had all this great stuff on there and she says, “What does she look like?”
She claimed her manager asked her “what race” the woman was, and after she said she was Asian, she was told to tell the woman they were “not hiring.”
She also claimed that an employee who was “taller than the rest” had to stay behind the register “so no one could see her body.”
‘Every girl there was beautiful. It was so intimidating to work with,” she said in another video.
“And yes, the majority of them were white. They were very thin, they were very tall.
The brand has been criticized online for its ‘one size fits all’ policy, which some say can promote unhealthy beauty standards for young girls.
Earlier this month, a woman named Brianna Gomez went viral on TikTok for sharing her experiences working at the chain
She also confirmed that employees were required to send photos of themselves “every day” to the “main people”, including full-body photos to show their outfits and close-ups of their chests.
“It was obviously an aesthetic of that store that is messed up, but if you look at Brandy in general, you see that they hire a certain type of people depending on who that manager is. a real mess.’
In a bomb Business insider Months later, the publication claimed that if CEO Stephan Marsan “felt a girl was too heavy or unattractive, he demanded she be fired” and if “a Brandy Melville store had too many black employees, he had them replaced with white women.” ‘
“If she was black, if she was fat … he didn’t want them in the store,” said former senior vice president Luca Rotondo.
The publication also alleged that there was “a group text with Stephan and other top executives” that contained “racist, sexist and anti-Semitic jokes, including a photo of Stephan editing his face onto Adolf Hitler’s body.”
A store owner named Franco Sorgi claimed to BI that Stephan “called black people primitive” and once told him that “he didn’t want black people to buy Brandy Melville clothes” because “it would damage the brand’s image.”
Additionally, the company has been harshly criticized online for its “one size fits all” policy, which some say may promote unhealthy beauty standards for young girls.
Earlier this month, another woman named Brianna Gomez went viral on TikTok for sharing her experiences working at the chain.
She said she got a job there when she was 15 and wasn’t interviewed, but was hired simply because the store’s manager “liked her outfit.”
She worked there for a total of four years and said she experienced many things that, looking back on it now, she thinks were “not legal.”
She also confirmed that employees were required to send photos of themselves “every day” to the “main people”, including full-body photos to show their outfits and close-ups of their chests.
“There were several times when I was wearing a tank top or a corset (it felt like we were) sending a straight-up photo of our breasts,” she said.
‘It was a photo of my chest, towards men… How is that allowed? And this also applies to minors. The majority of our staff was under the age of 18. Why didn’t I find that strange?’
DailyMail.com has contacted Brandy Melville for comment.