When she spots one of many painted picket indicators outdoors a Brandy Melville retailer, filmmaker Eva Orner stops in her tracks. “Since I began doing the documentary, I at all times sneak in and take a look at how many individuals are in there and what they’re promoting,” she tells Vainness Truthful. What she sees, she says, is “horrifying. I feel ‘cult’ is a phrase that’s bandied round loads, 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 inside workings of a quick trend firm that targets teenagers and has been worn by the likes of Kaia Gerber and Kendall Jenner. In line with the doc, beneath mushy baby-tees emblazoned with sayings like “Confused, Depressed, However Effectively Dressed” is a shadowy operation that each preys upon and income off feminine insecurity. The phrases “antisemitism,” “racism,” and “sexism” are tossed out throughout the first three minutes of the movie concerning sure executives, a harbinger of darkish deeds to be revealed. Brandy Melville didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
“Most firms possibly 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 top, your jaw is on the ground.”
Orner, an Australian who drives an electrical automobile and has adopted a vegetarian weight loss plan, was launched to Brandy Melville by Oscar-nominated producer Jonathan Chinn (Black Sheep) and Oscar-winning producer Simon Chinn (Trying to find Sugar Man). Because the movie reveals, the shop presents itself as much less of a label than as a life-style. Brandy Melville hires lovely women who appear well-liked—usually skinny, white, and below 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}, mentioned one former worker that Orner interviewed.
Employees members of coloration are employed however are sometimes relegated to working in inventory rooms, ex-employees instructed the filmmaker. Those that work at a retailer’s entrance—all of whom should match the “one dimension suits most” garments the corporate carries—are required to take day by day “retailer model” images which can be despatched to Brandy Melville’s enigmatic founder, former employees within the doc defined. Staff may very well be—and reportedly had been—employed and fired primarily based on such photos. “They’re like 16-year-old women. You will discover, like, 700 completely different causes to fireplace them,” one nameless firm worker says within the doc. “Like, it’s too straightforward. It wasn’t even honest.”
All of this info was unearthed earlier than Orner started working on her movie by 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. Quite a lot of younger women know that the corporate’s not nice, however they nonetheless store there,” Orner explains. “And I discover that basically disturbing. There comes a degree in your life the place it’s a must to [decide], What sort of particular person do I need 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 admittedly shocking.”
Orner got down to make a movie that may 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 change into a dumping floor for heaps of undesirable clothes. Within the documentary, former workers members mentioned that higher-ups would purchase the non-Brandy shirts off their backs so they might replicate and mass produce their design—a apply that has led to copyright infringement fits in opposition to the model. (After being sued by Endlessly 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 might be being exploited by firms and doing their work once you make movies selling them and [don’t] receives a commission,” she explains. “There are these armies of younger women promoting for these evil firms who’re simply laughing all the best way to the financial institution.”