A new documentary will expose the appalling underbelly of popular clothing brand Brandy Melville, as a host 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 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 while thousands of young people clamored to get their hands on stylish, modern clothing, behind the scenes workers have now claimed they were subjected to rampant “discrimination against race, sex and size”.
An upcoming HBO documentary, called Brandy Hellville & The Cult of Fast Fashion, premiering on April 9, is now going to reveal how the brand became one of the largest clothing companies in the world, while supposedly harboring an identity extremely negative. “toxic work culture” without the knowledge of their loyal and growing fan base.
A new documentary will expose the appalling underbelly of popular clothing brand Brandy Melville.
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.
Titled Brandy Hellville & The Cult of Fast Fashion, the documentary will premiere on April 9.
The trailer for the documentary noted that the brand used social media campaigns that largely revolved around “teenagers taking photos of each other.”
In a trailer for the new film, a former employee recalled becoming obsessed with Brandy Melville after noticing “everyone was wearing it at school.”
“I first heard about Brandy Melville in seventh grade, everyone used it at school,” he explained.
“But behind the curtain, no one has any idea that a man in sweatpants and sneakers was running the Instagram that all these teenage girls were admiring,” one former employee explained.
“I went into the store and bought a star necklace and I felt very good and accepted.”
But she and many others explained how ‘behind the curtain’ things were not what they seemed.
Notably, the teaser noted that the brand used social media campaigns that largely revolved around “teenagers taking photos of each other.”
“No one has any idea that a man in sweatpants and sneakers ran the Instagram that all these teenage girls admired,” another former employee explained. “This place was not a conventional clothing company.”
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.
“The girls would go to the factory where the clothes were made and choose the things they liked,” he said.
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.
Others said they had to take photos of the clothes they wore to work every day to send to the ‘founder of the company’ for approval.
The trailer also showed an employee discussing “text messages between senior management at Brandy Melville” that contained “the most vile, sexual and racist jokes possible.”
“And then you’d go to the warehouse and see all the people working there, and they’re not white.”
Others said they had to take photos of the clothes they wore to work every day to send to the “founder of the company” for approval.
While the trailer didn’t divulge any other information on the topic, it also prompted an employee to discuss “text messages between senior management at Brandy Melville” that contained “the most vile, sexual and racist jokes possible.”
“Brandy Melville tapped into the worst impulses of being a teenager,” someone else said. “Finally someone is talking about it.”
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.”
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.”
‘All the girls there were beautiful. “It was very intimidating to work with him,” she said in another video.
‘And yes, most of them were white. They were very skinny, they were very tall.
The brand has been heavily criticized online for its “one size fits all” policy, which some believe can promote unhealthy beauty standards for girls.
Earlier this month, a woman named Brianna Gomez went viral on TikTok for sharing her experience while working at the network.
She also confirmed that employees had to “send pictures of themselves every day” to “bosses”, which included full-body shots to show off their outfits and close-ups of their breasts.
“It was clearly an aesthetic of that store, which is fucked up, but if you look at Brandy in general, you’ll see that they have a certain type of people that they hire depending on who the manager is, which is really a disaster.’
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 told BI that Stephan “called black people primitive” and He once told her 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.
Earlier this month, another woman, named Brianna Gomez, went viral on TikTok for sharing her experience while working at the network.
She said she got a job there when she was 15 and was not interviewed, but was simply hired because the store manager “liked her clothes.”
He worked there for four years in total, and said he experienced many things that, looking back, he believes were “not legal.”
She also confirmed that employees had to “send pictures of themselves every day” to “bosses”, which included full-body shots to show off their outfits and close-ups of their breasts.
“There were several times where I was wearing a tank top or a corset (it looked like we were) sending a direct image of our boobs,” she said.
‘It was a photo of my chest, going to men… How is that allowed? And this is also for minors. The majority of our staff were under 18 years old. Why didn’t I think that was strange?
DailyMail.com has contacted Brandy Melville for comment.