Brandy Melville Stores Are Hell on Earth

When she spots one of many painted picket indicators exterior a Brandy Melville retailer, filmmaker Eva Orner stops in her tracks. “Since I began doing the documentary, I all the time sneak in and take a look at how many individuals are in there and what they’re promoting,” she tells Vainness Honest. What she sees, she says, is “horrifying. I believe ‘cult’ is a phrase that’s bandied round lots, and we had been very cautious after we determined to make use of it.”

Orner is referring to the identify of her newest documentary, Brandy Hellville & the Cult of Quick Style, which debuts on HBO on April 9. In it, the Oscar winner (Taxi to the Darkish Aspect) unspools the darkish interior workings of a quick style firm that targets teenagers and has been worn by the likes of Kaia Gerber and Kendall Jenner. In response to the doc, beneath delicate baby-tees emblazoned with sayings like “Careworn, Depressed, However Nicely Dressed” is a shadowy operation that each preys upon and earnings off feminine insecurity. The phrases “antisemitism,” “racism,” and “sexism” are tossed out throughout the first three minutes of the movie relating to sure executives, a harbinger of darkish deeds to be revealed. Brandy Melville didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.

“Most corporations perhaps do one unhealthy factor,” says Orner. With Brandy Melville, “one thing unhealthy occurs, after which one thing worse occurs. And it simply retains going. By the tip, your jaw is on the ground.”

Orner, an Australian who drives an electrical automotive and has adopted a vegetarian weight loss program, was launched to Brandy Melville by Oscar-nominated producer Jonathan Chinn (Black Sheep) and Oscar-winning producer Simon Chinn (Looking for Sugar Man). Because the movie exhibits, the shop presents itself as much less of a label than as a life-style. Brandy Melville hires lovely women who appear fashionable—usually skinny, white, and beneath the age of 18—who are sometimes recruited whereas purchasing within the retailer, the doc claims. Candidates are requested to submit full-body images and supply up their social media handles within the place of any skill-based {qualifications}, stated one former worker that Orner interviewed. 

Employees members of shade are employed however are sometimes relegated to working in inventory rooms, ex-employees informed the filmmaker. Those that work at a retailer’s entrance—all of whom should match the “one measurement matches most” garments the corporate carries—are required to take every day “retailer fashion” images which can be despatched to Brandy Melville’s enigmatic founder, former employees within the doc defined. Workers could possibly be—and reportedly had been—employed and fired primarily based on such pictures. “They’re like 16-year-old women. You will discover, like, 700 totally different causes to fireplace them,” one nameless firm worker says within the doc. “Like, it’s too simple. It wasn’t even honest.” 

All of this data was unearthed earlier than Orner started engaged on her movie by way of lawsuits introduced in opposition to the corporate and reporting by Kate Taylor, an investigative journalist at Enterprise Insider. (Brandy Melville denied all wrongdoing in a 2022 class-action lawsuit introduced by ex-employees. The corporate settled for $1.5 million.) However the revelations haven’t made a lot of a dent in Brandy Melville’s income. “There was an exposé on this firm. Numerous younger women know that the corporate’s not nice, however they nonetheless store there,” Orner explains. “And I discover that actually disturbing. There comes a degree in your life the place it’s important to [decide], What sort of individual do I wish to be? When a model’s been uncovered as being actually shit, you will get garments elsewhere. The truth that persons are so locked into this model is de facto shocking.”

Orner got down to make a movie that will contextualize the corporate’s moral points inside a bigger environmental panorama. Her cameras traveled to the far reaches of Prato, Italy—the place Brandy Melville’s clothes is produced in crowded factories—and Ghana, which has turn into a dumping floor for heaps of undesirable clothes. Within the documentary, former workers members stated that higher-ups would purchase the non-Brandy shirts off their backs so they might replicate and mass produce their design—a follow that has led to copyright infringement fits in opposition to the model. (After being sued by Eternally 21 in 2016, Brandy Melville’s guardian firm settled out of court docket.)

“The extent of exploitation in opposition to girls is staggering,” says Orner, particularly when it’s additional enabled by social media platforms like Instagram, Tumblr, and TikTok. “You’re being exploited by corporations and doing their work if you make movies selling them and [don’t] receives a commission,” she explains. “There are these armies of younger women promoting for these evil corporations who’re simply laughing all the best way to the financial institution.”