Brandy Hellville & the Cult of Fast Fashion

Interviewees suggest that the target Brandy Melville client, store employee, and model was White, thin, blond-haired, and attractive. Plus size or diverse body shapes were not included or desired. Employees of color were relegated to "behind the scenes" jobs, especially Black employees (a source comments that Asian employees were treated better once Brandy Melville became successful in China). A text message chain had jokes revolving around Hitler and the Nazis; pictures show the company CEO dressed up as Hitler and a skeletal figure with a banner reading "Miss Auschwitz." Meanwhile, some factories producing fast-fashion clothing in Italy (not necessarily Brandy Melville's) are found to be treating employees like slaves. And in Ghana, locals struggle to keep up with the influx of discarded clothes from the West, which the country is said to be strong-armed into accepting. One interviewee describes the situation there as a "continuation of colonialism."

A story is told about a young woman who claims she was raped by a middle-aged Italian man in an apartment owned by Brandy Melville. The company's "one size" clothing line fits only the smallest girls, prompting teenage girls around the world to fixate on losing weight regardless of health implications; interviewees discuss eating disorders. The company's leaders collected photographs of their young employees to "hire or fire" them based on their looks. They had a communication system to prompt store clerks to take photos of young female customers they found attractive. Handling the discarded clothes of the fast-fashion industry is physically harming women in one African country, and the piles of waste are polluting the area's land as well as the world's oceans.

Young women rethink the appropriateness of their older male bosses asking them to pose for photographs, which were collected. One interviewee alleges they asked specifically for photos of "boobs and feet." An interviewee talks about someone who had "pedo energy." Footage shows women in underwear.

"F--k," variations on "s--t," "damn," "goddamn," "crap," "c--k," "suck my d--k," "pissed," "sucked." Middle fingers.

The woman who claims she was raped says she had two alcoholic drinks and then doesn't remember anything that happened next, until she woke up the next morning.