Behind the nostalgic draw of Brandy Melville clothing, and the Tumblr/Instagram photoshoots it inspired, lies a toxic work environment and fashion practices that do damage to our physical environment of planet Earth.
In “Brandy Hellville & the Cult of Fast Fashion,” filmmaker Eva Orner took viewers behind the scenes of the brand that rose to prominence in the 2010s for teenage girls, who saw any piece of clothing from Brandy Melville as a status symbol that would elevate their popularity and “coolness.” The behavior of founder Stephen Marsan trickled down to executives, some of whom anonymously recounted their time working at the clothing company.
“Due to ongoing litigation, two former Brandy Melville associates requested their identities be obscured,” a preface statement read before start of the documentary. “They are portrayed by actors reading from their interview transcripts.”
These two men, one a former vice president and the other a former store owner, corroborated accounts from former employees who worked in the stores behind the counter and stocking retail of an oppressive work environment.
Women and girls who used to work at Brandy Melville stores did not hold back when sharing experiences that made them uncomfortable and that stood out as below-par standards in a workplace. Here are some of the documentary’s most shocking takeaways:
Founder, Stephan Marsan, ran the company’s Instagram page
The trailer hinted that Stephen Marsan, founder and man behind the curtain of the company, ran the Instagram for Brandy Melville. He would repost photos taken by other girls to the Brandy Melville Instagram and reach out to them; or have his right-hand man Jesse Longo reach out to them and offer to work together, as was the case for photographer Willow, who shared her story in the documentary.
He also asked employees to take “store style” photos daily, or whenever they were on shift, which were then texted directly to him. Sometimes these were considered for social media.
Later on in the doc, Kate Taylor, who wrote the exposé article on the company for Business Insider, recalled an employee telling her of a moment looking over Marsan’s shoulder to see he had kept all of the photos of her in a folder to examine whenever he wanted.
Marsan demanded chest and feet pics, and the girls don’t know where those went
Store-style or “staff style” shoots at first included full body photos, in addition to upper halves, but former employees also mentioned being asked to share chest and feet pictures. When asked about the purpose for these, some of them were unsure. Another staffer remembered distinctly asking about why they had to do that, and an older employee made it clear that it wasn’t up for discussion.
The girl who questioned the practice put in her two weeks’ notice and left because she no longer felt safe working at Brandy Melville.
Brandy Melville sold different sizes at one point
Before switching to the slippery slope of “one size fits all,” later edited to say “one size fits most,” the clothing company did have different sizes in stock. They later got rid of any sizes beyond a small. Employees expressed concern at only selling small sizes, to which the response was ambiguous, and one girl later on in the film expressed how the workers began to outgrow the tiny clothes that definitely did not fit all bodies.
The Prato, Italy Textile Hub’s Double-Sided involvement
Orner used the chaos behind Brandy Melville as a starting point to address the broader environmental effects of fast fashion. One site investigated is Prato, Italy, described as a fast fashion hub by the mayor of the city himself, Matteo Biffoni. Pronto Moda is a label that was coined there, referring to articles of clothing that are worn 4 or 5 times before being discarded.
A police force of source checks in on businesses randomly to make sure their practices are legitimate and humane, but the mayor did cite instances where they discovered slave labor.
Later in the documentary after insight into the global impact of the waste crisis in places like Ghana, Biffoni discussed how 100 years before climate change became a concern, Prato also welcomed recycling businesses that repurpose old fabric into new garments of clothing.
Dumping grounds in Ghana
Brandy Melville is not the only company that contributes to the environmental crisis. Garments thrown in the trash or donated in America are dumped in Ghana. The doc took viewers to Accra, Ghana (the capital city) to the Kantamanto Market, the largest second-hand economy in the world, where 15 million new garments are discarded every week. Ghana only has 32 million people, which would mean that each citizen would need to buy an outfit a week to keep up, according to Sammy Oteng of The Or Foundation.
40% of garments go into the waste stream around Accra, Ghana. There is no landfill, so they either burn them, or the clothing goes into the ocean. A beach cleanup scene shows just how inundated the shores of the port city have become, with clothing buried 8 feet under the sand, and probably on the ocean floor as well. Researcher Joe Ayesu described 96 microfiber counts in 10 mL water filtered from the water.
The OR’s Liz Ricketts describes the city as the main port exit for humans trafficked as slaves for the Americas, and in a terrible cycle, it has now become the main port of entry for secondhand clothing being sent back as waste, perpetuating colonialism and exploiting the bodies of the Ghanaians, specifically the women that carry loads of clothes too healthy for their spines to remain intact.
“Brandy Hellville & the Cult of Fast Fashion” is now streaming on Max.
