HBO’s newest film takes a hard glance at a Gen Z- cherished financial company: Brandy Melville.
Eva Orner, the director of Brandy Hellville & The Cult of Fast Fashion, explores the organization’s internal workings, its conflicts surrounding its modelling policies, and its reported toxic effect on young children’s perceptions of body image and style.
Throughout the movie, which premieres April 9 on HBO and Max, Orner interviews former employees of the company, including keep workers, a former vice president, and a business owner, who share their personal accounts of devastating experiences with the brand. The numerous requests for comment from PEOPLE regarding the claims in the film have not been received by Brandy Melville’s representatives.
” We spoke to hundreds of ex- employees at Brandy, some of them would share their stories, but they did n’t want to go on camera”, Orner told PEOPLE in an exclusive interview ahead of the film’s release. ” I fully understand that they are still very young, and that they were fresh when they worked it. They are scared of the company, they’re scared of retribution, and they’re also scared because they’re starting their careers and they do n’t necessarily want to be seen as a troublemaker by future employers”.
” I think one of my biggest shoutouts is to the younger ladies who agreed to be in the movie and are leading this movement,” she continues. ” They’re soldiers, and I have so much respect for them”.
Above, the nine biggest revelations alleged in the novel exposé.
The fictional story about a guy and a woman falling in love with a woman gives the character” Brandy Melville” its name.
Kate Taylor, an investigative journalist for Business Insider who wrote an article about reported discrimination and individual abuse at the company in September 2021, explains that the business is never named after a man in Brandy Hellville. Rather, it is named after two hypothetical figures: Brandy, an American, and Melville, a gentleman from England, who meet in Italy and fall in love.
Taylor says in the documentary that” the name choice did n’t align with the current image of Brandy Melville” and that” I was quite perplexed by this choice.” ” Everything about this company becomes rather perplexing very quickly,” says the company’s president.
In the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, close to the UCLA college, Brandy Melville opened its first US shop in 2009. Due in large part to the Malibu young vibe, the company quickly gained popularity with adolescent girls. Brandy Melville now has 94 areas worldwide, including more than 30 in the United States.
At the time the Business Insider article was published, Brandy Melville staff, lawyers, and other professionals named in the post did not respond to Insider’s requests for comment.
Silvio Marsan, the store’s founder, and Stephan, his son, reportedly demanded that store employees send daily outfit photos.
The film also uncovers more about Brandy Melville’s European leader, Silvio Marsan, and his brother and business director Stephan. Frank ran the company’s Instagram account, which was filled with images of fresh young women. According to the testimonials from former employees in the document, he and Stephan may require employees to mail” business style” photos of their clothing each day.
The girls allegedly received the order at the time to use the photos as a platform for modeling gigs at the company. According to a former store employee who was interviewed in the document, Stephan later began asking for chest and foot photos after initially wanting full-body photos. The girls were not told where the photos would be going or where they could discuss it.
According to a former Italian senior vice president in the company,” If Stephan did n’t like some of them, he would send it back to me privately and say,” Find her.” Stephan added that Stephan hired people based on their looks in the doc.
According to Business Insider, Stephan has never granted an interview. In a 2014 article, the Italian outlet Viterbo News stated that the family behind Brandy Melville had” crafted a culture of confidentiality”.
Stephan has not responded to PEOPLE’s numerous requests for clarification regarding the allegations in the documentary.
HBO
Executives from Brandy Melville would arrange for their favorite female employees to go on extravagant vacations.
Taylor goes on to explain how Brandy Melville executives would take their top employees on expensive, competitive trips for product research in the movie. The girls would go to the factories where the clothing was made and pick their favorite designs during these trips.
The former Italian vice president of the company, interviewed in the documentary, remarked that the girls were” treated like queens”. The documentary features Brandy employees taking over the Swiss Alps in lavish hotel rooms from TikTok videos.
The brand’s problematic “one- size- fits- all” sizing approach was aimed at keeping an exclusive clientele.
The former vice president explains in the documentary that the store initially offered a variety of sizes before switching to a one-size-fits-all approach. The limited sizing, according to Stephan, created brand exclusivity. During the film, a former employee recounts how she asked if all the sizes were small, to which she was told,” It’s not small— there’s no size”.
Further, the documentary further explains that the store eventually changed its phrasing from “one size fits all” to “one size fits most” due to numerous complaints. This adjustment was made in response to customer feedback and concerns about body diversity and inclusivity.
In group chats with a number of Brandy Melville employees, Silvio and Stephan Marsan allegedly sent racist, homophobic, and antisemitic memes and messages.
Another Italian whistleblower, a former Brandy Melville store owner, explains how Silvio and Stephan frequently shared their strong political views with younger employees.
The documentary’s whistleblower claims that Stephan was a libertarian who was staunchly opposed to taxes. He asserts that he would make fun of young girls who support political candidates like Bernie Sanders. In Brandy stores, they sold signs with the name” John Galt”, a character from the libertarian novel Atlas Shrugged. In the movie, former store employees claim that Stephan would distribute this novel to employees in the early days of the company.
Stephan also moderated a group discussion on” Brandy Melville Gags,” in which he shared disturbing racist, homophobic, and antisemitic memes and messages with Brandy employees. In the screenshots featured in the documentary, an alleged photo of Stephan dressed as Hitler is revealed.
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Customers believed that the brand’s “made in Italy” label indicated ethical production, which was unfounded and proven untrue.
The movie also examines the clothing’s quality, which a former store owner claims is subpar. Despite this, some people perceive the items as high-end because many tags stated they were “made in Italy.” The documentary claims that the garments were made in Prato, Italy, a textile hub in Europe, where labor conditions are not strictly enforced.
” Many of the Brandy Melville clothing says “made in Italy,” which I believe many people in the U.S. view as a sign of quality and luxury,” Taylor explains in the document.
Most of the clothing was mass- produced in factories where workers were not well- paid well, Matteo Biffoni, the mayor of Prato, says in the film. He claims that the city periodically checks the factories for working conditions, but that they occasionally come across poorly run ones.
The CEO of Textile Exchange, a global nonprofit that supports climate change in the fashion industry’s material supply chain, adds in the document that when clothing is purchased at a very low price, as seen at fast-fashion stores like Brandy Melville, there is typically an ethical price tag.
” If something costs very little, is coming to you in a way that feels impossibly too easy, impossibly too good, there is someone, somewhere in that supply chain that is not being paid, that is not being respected”, Bergkamp says in the doc.
Brandy Melville predominantly hired thin, White women. People of color who worked for the brand were frequently forced to work in secret spaces in storage facilities.
Former employees in the documentary assert that there was truth to the myth that the store only employed “skinny White girls.”
” It was like,’ This is what you want to look like. This is your goal,'” Cate, a former employee, says in a confessional during the film. Another ex- employee, Kali, also shares in the documentary,” The ideal was the White girl, mostly blonde, sometimes brunette”.
The whistleblower in Italy claims that Stephan allegedly told him to pay attractive people more, even if they did n’t have the necessary skills for the job. ” For Stephan, if they were really light- skinned and redhead, that was number one, like the top of the top”, the Italian whistleblower says on camera, explaining that Stephan aimed to attract only elite, popular girls.
He further asserts that because Stephan did n’t want Black employees to work in stores, women of color who were hired were frequently escorted into the back stockroom. Former Black employee Kali explains in the movie how she was aware that this treatment was improper.
” We were all being pushed to the back, out of sight”, Kali says. ” But it was n’t something we were necessarily mad about, because I loved being around my people, like people of color”.
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Many former Brandy employees had eating disorders while working there.
Former employees of the brand discuss the brand’s one-size-fits-all philosophy in the film and discuss how they struggled with eating disorders while working there. One former employee describes feeling pressured to be slim and ideal while working for the company.
Another employee claims that the company instilled a mindset that made her despise her own body. She claims that despite moving out of the place, she is still recovering from the effects it had on her. ” Eating disorders are going to stay with you for a while”, the former employee shares in a confessional.
Ghana and other African nations have turned into a dumping ground for our unwanted fast fashion.
Former Teen Vogue fashion news editor Alyssa Hardy claims in the documentary that 85 % of clothing’s waste ends up in landfills in the United States and Europe. Contrary to popular belief, Hardy explains that a lot of donated clothing ends up in Ghana.
In the movie, Hardy claims that” Ghana is a dumping ground for our unwanted fast fashion.” ” We have agreements with African nations to take the clothing, even though they do n’t necessarily need it.”
The documentary then includes images of Ghana’s Kantamanto Market, which is currently the largest second-hand clothing market in the world. The market receives 15 million used clothing pieces each week from the West. Locals in Ghana refer to second-hand clothing as” Obruni Wawu,” which denotes the dead white men’s clothing, with the assumption that it was made up of White people.
” The United States and Europe have essentially forced this arrangement on these countries, and when they have tried to resist, the United States and Europe have imposed punishments”, Hardy continues. ” For instance, they’ve threatened to revoke duty- free status for countries that refuse second- hand clothing, imposed taxes, or withdrawn grant money”.
On April 9, Brandy Hellville & The Cult of Fast Fashion airs on HBO and is available for streaming on Max.