A former Brandy Melville employee has revealed her “miserable” experience working at the fashion clothing store, describing the “crazy” regulations she had to follow after landing the job at the tender age of 14.
Delaney Rinke22-year-old, decided to speak out against the popular fashion retailer just days after the HBO documentary Brandy Hellville & The Cult of Fast Fashion exposed its egregious underbelly, airing shocking “racism” and “exploitation” that many former employees say they suffered while working for the ‘fast fashion cult’.
The California-based content creator detailed how she was hired when she was just a teenager after an employee approached her while she was in the store and asked to “take a photo” of her outfit, with the store manager and then texting Delaney and telling her when she could start, despite not receiving any paperwork or request from her.
In a wide-ranging interview with PeopleDelaney joined the slew of employees criticizing Brandy Melville when she claimed the four years she spent working at the retailer were filled with “crazy” daily dress checks in which upper management took photos of the teenagers working there to decide if “She seemed pretty enough to work there.”
Delaney Rinke, 22, has revealed her ‘miserable’ experience at the fashion clothing store, where she started working when she was just 14 years old.
In a wide-ranging interview with People, Delaney joined the large number of employees who criticized Brandy Melville.
His confession comes just days after an HBO documentary Brandy Hellville & The Cult of Fast Fashion exposed the appalling underbelly of a wildly popular clothing brand.
She told the outlet that her journey with the fast fashion store began when she was just a teenager shopping with her mother.
‘They asked me to take a photograph of my outfit and then asked if I was interested in a job. “My mom was shopping at the time, so she didn’t see them taking a photo, but she didn’t think much of it,” she explained.
In a clip posted to her TikTok account about her experience, she claimed that after taking the photo, she was told she could “start next week” and was advised to “just follow someone on Instagram.”
His manager at the time was sending him instructions via Instagram direct messages. Delaney claimed the workers never asked to see any type of identification before she started her job.
“I was very, very young, so I was pretty miserable at work,” she told People.
The 22-year-old claimed she spent most of her time at work doing a “crazy” amount of dress checks.
“They were like, ‘Okay, everyone, let’s go out.’ We would line up and wait to take turns taking pictures of our outfits. They would take three pictures of each outfit. They would take full-body pictures.
‘Then they would take a close-up of your top and your butt, and then they would take a close-up of your shoes.
“The photos had to be very staged and make us look much older than we were, which was crazy,” she explained.
On his social media account, Delaney noted that at the time workers never told him who the teens’ photos were being sent to.
They send it to God knows who. “They’re not telling you who,” he said.
It wasn’t until the 22-year-old became the store’s visual manager that she discovered where the snaps were going.
‘Later, when I was in management, I discovered that those photographs were going to be published in the company.
‘Basically, the owner of the entire store was giving people strikes out of their suits or [deciding] if they looked pretty enough to work there. When the people came to three sets [strikes] management didn’t like it, they ran out of time,” he said.
According to the Casa Legal Group, the legal age to work in California is 14 years old, however those under 18 years old must have a work permit. It is unclear whether or not Delaney had a work permit at the time she worked at Brandy Melville.
Brandy Melville was founded in the 1980s in Italy and opened its first store in the US in 2009, and was almost immediately a huge hit, becoming a style staple among teenagers throughout the 2010s.
But as thousands of young people clamored to get their hands on stylish, fashionable clothing, behind the scenes, workers began to tell their stories and claimed they were subject to rampant “discrimination against race, sex and size.”
The documentary, which premiered on April 9 – Reveals how the brand became one of the largest clothing companies in the world, while allegedly harboring an “extremely toxic work culture” unbeknownst to its loyal and growing fan base.
Notably, the teaser noted that the brand used social media campaigns that largely revolved around “teenagers taking photos of each other.”
Another woman claimed that Brandy Melville “only hired skinny white girls” for her stores, while she used people of color in her factories.
In 2020, a former Brandy Melville employee named Callie went viral on TikTok after accusing the company of being “fatphobic” and “racist” in a series of explosive videos.
“My second week on the job, someone walks in and says, ‘Hi, I want to work here,'” he recalled in one of his TikToks.
And I said, “Okay, give me your resume and let me show it to my boss.” And she gives me her resume and I go back and my boss looks at it for half a second and she had all these amazing things on there and she says, “What’s she like?”
He claimed his manager asked him “what race” the woman was, and after she said she was Asian, he was told to tell her they were “not hiring.”
A host of former employees have spoken out about the horrific racism and exploitation they suffered while working for the ‘fast fashion cult’ in the upcoming HBO documentary.
The trailer for the documentary noted that the brand used social media campaigns that largely revolved around “teenagers taking photos of each other.”
Another woman claimed in the trailer that Brandy Melville “only hired skinny white girls” for her stores, while she used people of color in her factories.
He also alleged that an employee who was “bigger than the rest” had to stand behind the register “so no one could see her body.”
in a bomb Business Insider Months later, the publication claimed that if CEO Stephan Marsan “thought a girl was too fat or unattractive, he demanded she be fired” and if “a Brandy Melville store had too many black employees, he replaced them 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 post also alleged that there was “a group text with Stephan and other senior executives” that contained “racist, sexist and anti-Semitic jokes, including a photo in which Stephan edited 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 image of the brand.”
Additionally, the company has been heavily criticized online for its “one size fits all” policy, which some believe may promote unhealthy beauty standards for girls.
DailyMail.com has contacted for comment.