Brandy Hellville & The Cult of Fast Fashion: Accusations made against the retailer

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Brandy Melville has fed stockpiles of single-sized clothes to younger women since 2009, that includes a listing of plain “baby tees,” low-rise denim, tight thermals, and micro shorts.

The model, reminiscent of a California-girl aesthetic, has fostered a cult following of tweens and twenty-somethings by promoting its primary fashion objects for not more than $40. Brandy Melville gained notoriety from free ads of A-list fashion icons Kendall Jenner and Kaia Gerber sporting its clothes, in addition to streamlining close-ups of skinny, long-haired “Brandy girls” gallivanting in entrance of the model’s signature white brick wall.

But hidden amid the effable reward lies the chilly underbelly of a quick style firm that’s been selling poisonous office practices from the begin, in keeping with a 2021 report from Business Insider. Through conversations with former government members and over 30 retailer employees, Kate Taylor – a senior correspondent – discovered critical allegations of racism, antisemitic behaviour, and sexual exploitation beneath the management of CEO and founder, Stephan Marsan.

Now, in collaboration with Oscar-winning director Eva Orner, the findings from Taylor’s investigative piece are dropped at mild as soon as once more in HBO’s new documentary, Brandy Helville: The Cult of Fast Fashion.

The movie items collectively first-person accounts from a handful of outdated staff, a earlier senior vice chairman, and a retailer proprietor who managed 11 areas. Both the earlier senior vice chairman and former retailer proprietor are plaintiffs in their very own respective lawsuits against the firm for discrimination. In tandem with the claims against Brandy Melville, an exploration into the realm of quick style and its subsequent environmental abuse – particularly in Accra, Ghana – is carried out.

Here are the 4 predominant accusations made against Brandy Melville in the documentary.

Wrongful hiring practices

Unlike different retailers, Brandy Melville didn’t rent its retailer associates primarily based on a typical software. The retail retailer’s job software was an outfit or an Instagram, in keeping with former staff throughout eight cities, and in some circumstances younger women weren’t even conscious they had been “applying”.

Based on the accounts of younger girls who labored for the model as early as 2013, an worker in the retailer would method a consumer, “sugar them up,” ask to take an image of their outfit to doubtlessly use for the retailer’s Instagram and for “market research,” and despatched it to the firm’s high executives – most notably Marsan. The pictures needed to be full physique and if higher-ups thought they match the mould of a “Brandy girl” – described by former staff as sometimes skinny, pale, purple hair or blonde with blue eyes – they had been requested to work there.

“The employee who worked in California and New York said the executives would text yes or no on the spot ‘and give us a rate that that person would be hired at,’” Taylor wrote for Business Insider. “She said she watched co-workers use Facetune to edit the appearance of a qualified applicant, making her taller and skinnier and erasing blemishes on her face before sending the photo to executives.”

The former retailer proprietor featured in the movie confirmed these hiring practices had been carried out and enforced by Marsan. He remembered being informed to pay women extra money in the event that they match his imaginative and prescient, regardless of their work expertise or ethic. These women needed to “attract elite” – their widespread, stylish friends – in keeping with the former retailer proprietor, and he was informed to rent “attractive white girls.”

Willow – a photographer who labored immediately with Marsan and Jessy Longo, the CEO’s “right-hand man” – was contacted by the model after a photograph she took of her buddies in the attire landed on the Brandy Melville Instagram with out her permission. In the documentary, Willow remembered barely with the ability to inform that the e mail she acquired was from the model. The message instructed her to let “them” know if she’d prefer to work collectively.

“One day I came into work and there were these clear buttons with sort of an electrical system set up next to every register,” stated Marta, a former worker at Brandy Melville’s flagship location in New York City. “It was a system that Stephan used to inform the person at the register that they should take a photo of the girl that’s checking out.”

“The red button goes off and you’re supposed to take a photo, and offer them a job. We had to,” Marta defined.

“Store style” and discriminatory closures

All the former staff who labored for a Brandy Melville retailer remembered being subjected to the follow of “store style”.

“Store style” was enforced amongst all retail employees, in keeping with the documentary. Every morning, younger women aged 15 and up would take full physique footage of themselves of their outfit that day. These footage would then be despatched on to Marsan and Longo, former staff stated. When Cate, a former worker from Newport Beach, questioned the place the pictures had been going, she was shut down.

“One of the older girls said, ‘We’re not allowed to talk about it,’” Cate recalled. “And that’s when I’m like, ‘Oh no, something’s going on here that I don’t know about, and I don’t feel safe here anymore.’”

Afterward, Cate promptly put in her two weeks and left Brandy Melville.

“We were kind of told, ‘Oh, the photos are potentially for if we want you to model for us,’” Sheridan, an ex worker of Brandy Melville’s Honolulu, Hawaii, location stated.

Emily, a former worker in San Jose, California, stated these “store style” footage began as a full physique picture, however they had been quickly requested to ship “chest and feet pictures.”

“For each store, we had a group chat for the managers, myself, and Stephan,” the former senior vice chairman stated. “We received the pictures from our girls, and if Stephan didn’t like some of them, he would send it back to me privately, and say, ‘Fire her.’”

One of the former staff Taylor spoke to, who labored at the flagship retailer in New York, informed her that she had approached Marsan from behind someday and noticed a folder of all the pictures she’d despatched to him over the years for “store style”.

The featured retailer proprietor, who opened Brandy Melville’s first shops in Canada, additionally claimed that he was instructed to shut his retailer in Ontario after executives had been despatched to the location and located that the clientele was primarily “Indian and dark people”. In the court docket paperwork filed, the retailer proprietor recalled Marsan’s brother – who works for the Swiss firm that owns Brandy Melville’s trademark – calling the location “ghetto”. Marsan’s brother, Yvan, demanded he shut the retailer down or he would now not ship merchandise over.

A supervisor at a special retailer was described by Marsan as a “communist” as a result of of her piercings. The former senior vice chairman recalled Marsan telling him, “She’s going to destroy the f***ing store,” earlier than telling him he needed to hearth her.

Faux product analysis

Kali, an worker who left her publish at the flagship New York City location, and Natasha, who beforehand labored at a Brandy Melville in Palo Alto, California, claimed the firm mimicked the clothes types of different corporations.

Natasha remembered seeing an off-the-shoulder white shirt are available in with a cargo, weeks after she’d worn the same high made by a special model to work. Kali remembered a fellow worker telling her that Marsan had paid her $100 for the sweater she was sporting “so they could copy it”.

When Kali wore a pair of pants the higher-ups had appreciated, they questioned the place she acquired them and requested her to indicate them the on-line hyperlink. According to her, they instantly purchased the pants however by no means paid Kali for them.

“In some cases, the names of these things on the Brandy website, they’ll be like, ‘Josslyn’s shirt’. It’ll be because the shirt was literally purchased of Josslyn’s back,” Taylor stated.

In addition to allegations of mock styling, Brandy Melville would ship choose staff to their warehouses in China and Italy for “product research”, treating them like royalty so they might mannequin the new stock and select what they like. According to each the former senior vice chairman and the retailer proprietor, bank cards got to “product research girls” for $1,000 purchasing sprees that inspired them to exit and purchase what they wished from different shops. This was how Marsan might produce what his “top clientele” appreciated, the former senior vice chairman stated.

Racist, antisemitic gags groupchat and libertarian promoting

Business Insider had beforehand obtained over 150 screenshots from a groupchat titled, “Brandy Melville Gags”. The former retailer proprietor stated “everyone” was in the textual content chain, particularly greater than 30 males and members of the firm’s senior management. The outlet discovered a string of “pornography, photos of Hitler, and memes featuring the N-word” despatched in the group by Marsan.

“Holocaust and Nazi references appeared frequently. Hitler was mentioned 24 times in the more than 150 screenshots Insider viewed,” Taylor famous in her article.

Executives talking with Business Insider described Marsan to be outwardly “libertarian” with “strong political views”. The former retailer proprietor claimed Marsan would discuss to his retailer staff about his beliefs.

Libertarian bumper stickers had been plastered round the retailer in California, former worker Willow stated, which advocated for former US presidential candidate Ron Paul and denounced taxation.

Taylor recalled speaking to different retailer staff from the “early days” who informed her Marsan would hand out his private copies of Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, a infamous libertarian novel, to position round the retailer. This guide was remembered as the “bible of Brandy Melville” by retailer worker Marta.

One predominant character in Atlas Shurgged is called John Galt. John Galt can be the title of Brandy Melville’s personal label sub model.

Stephen Marsan and different executives didn’t reply to the filmmaker’s request for remark.

The Independent has contacted Brandy Melville for remark.