Transcripts - Forever Dreaming

[producer] Everyone good?

So, let's start with some
easy stuff at the beginning.

How did you first hear about
Brandy Melville?

I heard about Brandy first
when I was in seventh grade.

Everyone was
wearing it at school.

You had to have it.

If you didn't have it,
what were you doing?

And, um,

I remember I walked into
the store

and I bought the star necklace
that was all over Pinterest.

And me and my seven friends
wore it.

And I felt so cool and accepted

that I had a piece
of Brandy Melville.

And...

I remember, um, thinking that

the girls that didn't wear it,
they weren't as great as I was.

Maybe they weren't as pretty.

Maybe there was something wrong
with them.

It was like the social norm
at the time.

[up-tempo, funky music playing]

Ever since I was like, 13,

I've been obsessed
with Brandy Melville.

[woman 1]
Fashion is identity,

especially for teenage girls.

This is how you show
who you are,

what you believe,
who you're friends with,

and I think Brandy Melville
encapsulates that

better than almost
any other brand.

But there's also a dark side.

[music intensifies]

[woman 2] The fashion industry
has always been

built on the back
of exploitation.

[woman 3] When it comes
to fast fashion,

it often is a story of abuse.

[woman 4] From the beginning
of the supply chain to the end,

we're all being exploited
by the same system.

[woman 5] You say you care about
human rights

and the environment.

What do your clothes
say about you?

[woman 1]
It's easy to think,

"Who cares a fast fashion brand
is bad?

We already know this."

But the story of
Brandy Melville is a story

about anti-Semitism,

racism, sexism.

It's a story about this wider
system of exploitation

at Brandy Melville

and in the fashion industry
globally.

[dramatic music playing]

Hey, guys. I'm back in Brandy.
It's because I'm obsessed,

and I wanted to come back
and get more things

even though I got
way too much already.

It's actually a problem.

But I love
every single thing here.

[gentle music playing]

Brandy Melville is probably
my all-time favorite store.

So I went to Brandy
the other day

and did some damage.

This is the most exciting haul
I've ever done.

Ever. Ever, ever, ever.

It's all from Brandy Melville.

Oh! I love it,
I love it, I love it.

[woman 6] One day
in middle school,

everyone was suddenly wearing
Brandy Melville.

Brandy Melville was, like,
all the rage.

[woman 7] Feminine,
very form fitting.

Like, a lot of the shirts
are cropped.

Their stuff
was notoriously soft.

This, like, A-line skater skirt

and, like, a T-shirt
with a cupcake on it.

[woman 7] A lot of pretty,
like, girlie prints.

Like, you see bows, hearts,
little cute graphics.

[woman 6] Sort of trendy, like
young girl beachy style.

[woman 8] It's like Americana,
California.

Brandy Melville was, like,
my world when I was a teenager.

[woman 6]
The reason why I liked it?

I mean, I think it's just...

because everyone else liked it.

[tender piano melody playing]

[woman 9] It was my sophomore
year of high school.

I was 15 years old.

And I went into
the Brandy Melville store.

I was immediately approached
by one of the workers,

and she asked me

if she could take a picture
of my outfit

for "store style,"
she called it.

Um... And I told her...
I told her that she could.

And after she took the picture,

she says, "Oh, thank you,"

asked for my Instagram,
then I walk out.

And I had a smile on my face
for the rest of the day.

Told everybody at school,
told anyone I knew, really.

I told... I told everybody.

Everything about it

was just a dream come true to me
at the time.

[mellow electronic music
playing]

-[car horns honking]
-[traffic buzzing]

[woman 1] I spend
a lot of time doing

the day-to-day news
of the retail industry.

So a lot of, "What's happening
with Gap's earnings?

What's happening at McDonald's?"

And then the last couple
of years

I've been able to go deeper
on these big stories,

which brought me to this brand
that teenagers love

that most adults
haven't heard about.

Brandy Melville.

The first thing that you hear
about Brandy Melville

is that
it's one size fits all...

and that size is tiny.

I was like, this is something
that doesn't seem

like it should be happening
in fashion anymore.

I love you, Brandy Melville!

[Kate] In the last decade,
there's been

more and more pushes
towards inclusivity.

We have more plus-size,
we have more diversity

in bodies that we're seeing.

Brandy Melville just took things
in the opposite direction

where it says
there's one skinny,

perfect, tiny, ideal size.

This is something that was

explicitly part
of the business model.

Everything I've been learning
about Gen Z teenagers today

is that they wouldn't
put up with this.

Kind of weird.

[dramatic music playing]

[woman 10] Here's a thing that
me and my friends joke about.

We're like,
"f*ck Brandy Melville.

I'm never shopping there again.
You couldn't make me."

But like, god damn,
the baby tees!

They fit so good.
They're so small and cute.

[woman 3] I remember
when I saw an article

about the Brandy Melville
Instagram

and how it was this phenomenon
with one-size-fits-all clothing.

[dramatic music playing]

And that was, like,
the first time I ever

heard of this brand.

And then suddenly, I saw
a lot of stores popping up

around New York City.

When I was at Teen Vogue,
part of my job

as the fashion news editor

was to kind of report
on celebrity style.

What is Taylor Swift wearing?

How to get the look.

Sometimes, you know,
even the celebrity

would wear
a Brandy Melville tee,

and that would be an easy, cheap
T-shirt that you can also get.

People are buying into
not just a white T-shirt.

They're buying into
that Brandy Melville lifestyle.

I think it's impossible to talk
about Brandy Melville

and not talk about social media.

Don't need a camera or anything.
Just use your phone.

Be like, "Hey, what's going on?"

And then they watch it.

[Kate] Brandy Melville started
opening stores in the U.S.

at the time that you had a lot
of teenage girls

really creating their
own content for the first time

without any gatekeepers,

without being filtered through
a fashion magazine

or through adults in any way.

-Outfit check with friends!
-Gucci, Brandy Melville pants...

[Kate] This was allowing
teenage girls to see themselves

and portray themselves
the way they want

and push the limits
for the first time.

A lot of the Brandy Melville
photographers

were teenagers themselves.

All right. We're going to
sh**t the first look

on the famous white wall.

[Kate] So, it was teenagers
taking photos of teenagers

to post on social media.

And it was this whole kind of

Brandy Melville
extended universe

where it felt genuine
because it was genuine.

That taxi driver right there

just let us take a bunch
of photos in his taxi,

and they're so good.

[giggles]

[woman 11] I started to notice
like, Brandy, I don't know,

was all over Tumblr.
I was a big Tumblr girl.

My nickname
in high school was "Door."

That's what my parents called me
because I had my door closed,

was in my room all day,
just online.

[gentle music playing]

They had this dress.
The, like, iconic Jada dress.

I... I don't know if you...

But it had, like, this one,
like, band across the back,

and it was kinda open back.

I thought it was kinda cool
to show off your back

because then they had this bra

that had all these
kind of like strips across it.

Now looking back, I'm like,
"I would never wear that."

But I took some, like,
self-portrait photos,

which I used to do
a lot back in high school,

and I posted it on Tumblr.

And I think that was, like,

the biggest post
I ever had on there.

I think it got, like, 100,000
reblogs or whatever

[counter clicking rapidly]

[gentle music continues]

I was following the
Brandy Melville Instagram.

They were really into
hair moving.

And so was I at the time.
I don't know why.

I think that was kind of the
photo style that I really liked.

Really natural.

You know, like you're
following somebody around,

and they turn back
and look at you.

A little bit conceptual.

Very bohemian, like,
summertime stuff.

[laughs] But I just loved it.

I was already doing basically

what the Brandy photographers
would do with their friends

of, like, get a bag of clothes

and go run around
and take pictures.

I thought it looked really fun,
kind of like a community.

And one of my friends
had a Brandy shirt,

and I was like, "Let me take
a couple pictures like this.

Maybe they'll post it
or something."

They both had really long,
kind of blondish hair,

and they were just shaking
their hair back and forth

with, like, some stupid
striped T-shirts on

in, like, the Back Bay
of Newport Beach,

and that's... that's the picture
that they posted.

[gentle tonal electronic music
playing]

They flipped it to the side and
put some weird filter over that.

It was so random.

And then that's
when I got the email.

It was super short.
It was, "Hey.

Let me know if you'd like
to work together sometime."

There was no email signature.

There was no, "Hi,
I'm from this company."

"I really like your work."
Nothing.

It just said, "Jessy Longo."

I was like, "Who is this?"

I clicked in, and then I saw
@BrandyMelvilleUSA.com.

It was... nuts.

I was around 16, 17.

I was living in Orange County
at the time,

and then they had me come
to Santa Monica,

and my parents just kind of
dropped me off,

and they were kind of just,
like, "Okay."

And then I recognized,
oh, this was, like, the wall

where they sh**t
a lot of photos,

you know, in the alleyway.

And then I was starting
to put things together,

like, "Okay, so like, it all
happens right here."

And that made me really excited.

Then kind of behind the curtain,
it's like complete chaos.

[dramatic music playing]

[Kate] "Brandy Melville"
is not a person's name.

It is named after these two
fictional characters:

Brandy, who is an American,

and Melville,
who is an Englishman,

and they somehow meet in Italy
and fall in love.

I was kind of confused
by this being the name

because the backstory
isn't really in line, even,

with the Brandy Melville image
at this point.

Everything about this brand gets
pretty confusing pretty quickly.

Describing the Brandy
business model,

it feels like one of those
string boards

where you're
trying to connect things

and you look like
a conspiracy theorist

because it is so convoluted.

[keyboard keys clicking]

The CEO is usually
pretty easy to find

from a quick Google search.

But for Brandy Melville,

there was just nothing there.

No mission statement,
no explanation at all.

Like, who is actually running
all these stores?

So, as I was digging deeper,

I realized
each Brandy Melville store

is owned by a different
shell company.

And then Brandy Melville
is a trademark

that's owned
by a Swiss company.

So, you have all of these
different companies.

Kind of trying to figure out
how to connect them

can get very, very confusing.

Experts told me that it is
probably deliberately confusing.

But on pretty much all of them,
the same person is named,

and that person
is Stephan Marsan.

There was nothing
about him out there.

I was going through
Google images

and just scrolling
and trying to find anything

to figure out what this guy
looked like, what his deal was.

And you start imagining
this evil mastermind

wearing, like, Armani suits.

[man 1] Usually, I stay away
from Italians,

especially the ones abroad
are trouble.

But we got introduced,

and, uh... the vibe was good.

I had a restaurant
in Santa Monica,

and they just got here.

[producer] Who are "they"?

Stephan and Jessy.

Stephan is the owner
of this brand,

Brandy Melville,

and Jessy was his right hand.

He was able to do everything
that Stephan couldn't do,

and also spoke a little bit
more English.

Stephan had zero
knowledge of English.

We clicked right away.

He became like
what in the surface

would appear like a friendship.

He was bald with braces.

The only reason I'm bringing
that up is 'cause

once I found out
that he ran the Instagram,

it was so funny to me that
no one has any idea

that this man, like, in his,
I don't know, maybe late 30s,

with, like, sneakers
and sweatpants on,

is running the Instagram
that all these teenage girls

are, like, fanning over.

Yeah, hopefully Brandy
notices me

once I wear their clothes
and post in their wall.

Like, that'd be so cool
to be known to Brandy Melville.

Love you, Brandy,
if you're watching.

[Willow] It was definitely
just strange. It was bizarre.

I guess you could call him
a creative director.

But I never got
an official title

of anyone ever
that worked there.

We went into the store
for a bit,

and he was just grabbing things,
throwing them in bags.

I was also kind of, like,
what the f*ck is this place?

-Sorry, I don't know if I can...
-[producer] No, you can swear.

And then two models showed up,

and it was, you know,
not anything like,

"You should style this
with that."

It was just a bag of clothes

and, like, kind of,
"Show me what you got."

It was a mess.

I was really surprised that
they were able to have

such a large business
at that scale.

I mean, even their office space
was just...

It wasn't an office space.

It was, like, a warehouse
with crap everywhere.

It wasn't like a global,
you know, brand.

And from day one, I knew
that, like, this place

is not your conventional
clothing company.

[dramatic music playing]

We want things.

It's kind of like that
adrenaline rush.

That endorphin that you get
when you find something cute.

Oh, my gosh!

Fast fashion brands
have kind of figured out

exactly what you want
when you want it,

and you can have it for cheap.

A lot of people credit
ZARA as sort of this starter

of the fast fashion model.

In the '70s, they opened
their first store.

And then,
as the '80s progressed,

they decided to do
quicker trends

that they made themselves
in-house.

The faster they got them out,
the faster people were buying.

So, their whole model was to do
quick trends at low prices.

They were dropping
new styles every week,

so that was
about 52 seasons a year.

Some of the newer brands
have gone even further.

SHEIN, for example, advertises

that they drop about
a thousand styles a week.

And now, social media
advertising has made shopping

so much easier
than it has ever been.

[dramatic music playing]

And in that way, it's also
changed our shopping habits

because we're often
seeing things

we don't necessarily need,

but it's kind of playing into

our nature of like,
"Well, I want that."

In order for fast fashion
to succeed,

it needs us to see clothing
as something

that we can just pick up
and get rid of.

And that's why it works.

You can access it so easily

that it's almost like,
why wouldn't you?

I got, literally... a whole lot.

[car horns honking]

[former store owner]
I remember once

Stephan was bragging about how
the store on Saturday or Sunday

did, like, $20,000 or $25,000.

And I'm looking
at the numbers, and I go,

like, g*dd*mn,

that's...
that's not a bad model.

Stephan said, "Why don't you
open store in Canada?"

And I go, like,
"With these clothes?

I'm not going to Canada.
I mean, Canada is cold."

And he was like,
"Just go to Canada."

So, I opened the first store
in Canada,

in Vancouver,
April 2012.

But the big jump
was when I opened Toronto.

I kid you not, I had, like, a
ten-block line waiting outside.

[crowd screaming]

It was insane.

This is Brandy Melville,
Canada, Toronto,

coming at you live
on Queen Street,

opening in five minutes.

[dramatic music playing]

[former store owner] I had
stores come and complain to me

because the line was blocking
the entrance of other stores,

and they were pissed.

"Who is the owner?
What's going on?

What is this?"

Ha, this is success.

Based on what I've heard from
former executives, insiders,

it's an incredibly
successful business.

[dramatic music playing]

I heard Abercrombie looked into
buying Brandy Melville,

and when the bankers looked
at the financials,

they were a bit shocked
by how successful it was.

[former store owner] Stephan is
a very, very, very smart guy.

He understood
that the social media

would get the attention
of the masses.

Instagram, they had
a very efficient impact

on these little girls.

Fourteen, 15, 16,

that's all they did.

As soon as we posted something,

you can see
the number of likes scrolling.

Like, one, two, three, four,
five, ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta.

It was, like, so fast.

They never use advertisement.

Their advertisement
was Instagram

and was the celebrity
wearing things around.

We had so many from the
Disney Channel like Ciley Myrus,

Miley Cyrus,
or whatever her name is.

[producer] Miley Cyrus.

[former store owner]
They had the Jenner, Kyla?

What's her name? Ky...

Well, I not very good with this.

The daughter of Cindy Crawford,

she happened to live in New York

right above the store.

I'm Kaia Gerber,

and I'm going to be showing you
what I wear in a week.

[man 2] Stephan loved her.

So, we had literally luggages
full of clothes

left with the concierge.

These sweatpants
are Brandy Melville.

Shout out,
because Brandy Melville

has been a staple in my life

since I was in, like,
fifth grade.

[former store owner]
They'd have people

scrolling through Instagram
and see

if you have at least,
like, a million followers,

you would get
a private message saying,

"Hey, are you interested?

We are going to send you
a box of clothes

for free for you to keep.

All you have to do is post it."

Which is normal.
Everybody does that.

I don't know why they gave me
all these clothes

but thank you so much, Brandy.
So cute. It's so cute.

[dramatic music playing]

The United States and Europe
are consuming

around 36 billion units
of clothing a year,

and 85% of that
is getting discarded.

With numbers like that,

where is all that clothing
supposed to go?

Donation bins
are pretty common.

I live next door to one,
and I can hear it.

Like, every single night,
you hear this "Bang!"

and it's going on and on.

I'm seeing these clothing bins
get filled to the brim.

I think most people think

they actually are donating
their clothes,

and that is inherently
a good thing.

But our systems are not in
place in order to get clothing

to either be recycled
or donated properly,

and therefore, it's just
ending up somewhere else.

[ominous music playing]

[crowd chatter]

Ghana is like a dumping ground
for our unwanted fast fashion.

We have deals with countries
in Africa to take the clothing,

even though they don't
necessarily need it.

[man 3] We are currently in
Kantamanto Market,

which is the largest
secondhand economy in the world.

Kantamanto sees around

And then, just for context,
Ghana is a country

that only has 32 million people.

So, if you look at it,
that means, like,

almost, like, every Ghanaian
needs to buy

at least one outfit every week

for us to consume
the amount of stuff

that comes in
from the Global North.

So, the U.S., Canada, UK,
other parts of Europe.

In Ghana, secondhand clothing
is called "Obruni Wawu,"

which means
"dead white man's clothes."

The term comes from the fact

that when clothing
started flooding in here,

people assumed that it came from
people who had died.

Because why else would there be
so much of it?

[Sammy] The retailers buy
the bales from the importers,

but the retailers have
no idea what's in the bale.

They invest huge sums of money

into basically
a surprise box.

And the quality
keeps getting worse.

This is because
with fast fashion

there is no attention paid into
quality anymore.

So you go, and the only things
that you're finding

are, like, you know,
low-quality goods.

[Alyssa] United States
and Europe

have sort of forced this
arrangement on these countries.

And when they have tried
to stop it,

the United States and Europe

have imposed punishments
on them.

For example, trying to take
away the duty-free status

of anybody that wouldn't take
the secondhand clothing,

or taxing them in ways,
or taking away grant money.

[Liz] Fast fashion
has essentially turned

all clothing just into weight.

It's just being shuffled
around the world.

You try to make a couple pennies
off of it.

You move it somewhere else,

you try to make another couple
pennies off of it.

And you can't escape the truth

which is that there is
too much clothing.

[dramatic music playing]

[woman 6] It wasn't until after
I worked at Brandy Melville

that I even realized
that Brandy Melville

was part of fast fashion,

and how fast fashion
was impacting the world

and our environment.

[former store owner]
Stephan's father

started the company in Italy.

The father was making T-shirts,

just T-shirts.

[woman 12] In Italy,
the Brandy that I knew

when I was a teenager

was these weird sentences
that they had on the T-shirts,

like "Stressed, Depressed,
But Well Dressed."

[laughs]

When I was 19,

my cousin started to work
with Stephan

and Brandy Melville family.

And I said, "Okay.
Can I... can I try?"

And I started to work,
first in Rome.

I mean, I was 19 years old.

I was basically working
with all girls.

It was like the dream for,
like, a guy 19 years old.

Brandy Melville was not popular
when it was in Italy.

[former senior VP] The girls
wouldn't pull their hair off

for Brandy Melville
like they do in the U.S.

While I worked there,
they had this, like, switch.

[former senior VP] They started
focusing all the product

for the U.S. market.

Stephan had moved there
and based everything,

like every research
into the U.S.

That was... that was
his main target.

[dramatic music playing]

I was working at Brandy
exactly during that time.

So, Brandy turned to this
California girl look.

A white, blonde, tall,
skinny, surfer girl

that looked beautiful naturally
without makeup.

You could really feel this
shift coming,

that they wanted to go
in this direction

with this type of girl,

this type of body shape.

[former store owner] They
end up opening the first one

by UCLA in 2009,
or something like that.

[former senior VP]
And that's when

Brandy Melville exploded,

and became what it became.

[former store owner] It was
a thing to be a Brandy girl.

I never heard of Chanel girl
or, like, a Gucci girl,

or even, like, a lululemon girl.

But this was a thing.

It was the Brandy girl.

So, today I have the opening
shift at Brandy Melville.

-On my way to work.
-Oh, we're headed to Brandy.

-So now we're at work.
-Welcome to my channel.

[Kate] It is amazing
how much content there is

from Brandy Melville employees
about Brandy Melville.

There are these videos with
hundreds of thousands of views

that are just, "A day in my life
as a Brandy Melville employee."

I'm on cash today,
which is my favorite thing.

[Kate] It was a little bit of,
like, a hangout spot.

A place to kind of, like,
see and be seen.

These videos
are so, so popular.

This is what the behind
the store looks like right now.

[Kate] It somehow
has become the job

that all of these teen girls
want to have.

[dramatic music playing]

[Natasha] When I was 15,
I was sitting at a cafe,

reading my summer reading book,

um, and a woman came up to me
and said,

"Want to work at
Brandy Melville?"

She's, like, "You look so cute.

I think you would look great
working at our store."

And I was like, "Yeah, I want
to work at Brandy Melville."

Like, I thought
it was so cool.

They were opening a store
that next day in Palo Alto,

and she wanted me to be one
of the ten girls

who were gonna
be opening this new store.

When I started, I realized that
they definitely, like, found

the other, like, popular girls
in our community

to start working at this store.

[producer] Were you
even looking for a job?

No, I wasn't looking for a job.

[woman 10] I moved to New York.
I had no job, no apartment.

I was, like, 30 pounds lighter.

Just, like, very skinny, blonde.

I walked into Brandy Melville,
and I was like,

oh, my God,
everyone here is so pretty.

Like, I wanna work here.

They essentially, like,
hired me on the spot.

[laughs]

[Natasha] There was a stereotype
against Brandy Melville

for only hiring
skinny white girls.

That was sort of what
everyone knew about the store,

but they shopped there,
and it was cool anyways.

Like, "This is what you want to
look like. This is your goal."

The white girl, mostly blonde,
sometimes brunette.

Cool girl. Like, pretty girl.

A little basic but knows
how to follow the trends.

Skinny, small. Definitely young.

She's obviously,
like, beautiful.

Thin, blonde hair, blue eyes,

pale, white.

[former store owner] There was
a quiet, non-written agreement

where you need
good-looking girls at the store.

[producer] Did Stephan
tell you that or somebody else?

All the guideline
come from Stephan.

In fact, I was even encouraged
to pay them more,

even though they were not good
at what they did.

[woman 13] I remember one of
my assistant managers and I,

when we were closing with
another sales associate

who was younger,

she had this, like,
Swiffer brush,

but didn't have the Swiffer pad
on the Swiffer.

So, she was just, like,
plastic to concrete,

just scraping.

So, it's girls that, like,
clearly don't have

some key working skills.
It's just, like, gone.

A customer just walked in.
Should I say hi?

[Kate] There's an entire subset
of TikTok parodies and memes,

where it's people talking about
shopping at Brandy Melville

and just being ignored.

[nonchalantly] Hey.
Welcome to Brandy Melville.

Do you need something?
I'm kinda busy.

It's very, like, exclusive.

Like, you're supposed to feel
like you're part of a club

if you work there.

Did you try this on?

[Lee] So the energy is kind of,
like, mean girl, catty.

I think she heard us.

You're not supposed
to be rude, but...

they wouldn't fire you,
probably, if you were.

Next time, can you make sure
you take this off the hanger?

Just makes it easier for us.
Thanks.

I was totally in this vibe,
as well.

I remember, like, walking
around and feeling like,

I'm, like, different
because I work here,

and all the people who shop here
are just, like, boring.

And, like, "Oh, I'm going in
the secret door in the back,"

and, like,
"You can't come back here."

[Cate] I was always looking
forward to it when at school.

I'm gonna wear my best outfit.

I'm gonna walk past
all the customers,

and they're gonna look up to me,

and their kids are gonna
look up to me.

And I felt really special.

[dramatic music playing]

For Stephan, if they were
really light-skinned and redhead

was, like, the number one,
the top of the top,

which was funny to us
because, like,

"Oh, he's doing that
because he's a redhead."

So, we would always
laugh about him

basically trying to attract
only the elite.

Let's call it probably the cool
kids in school and everything.

That's then after what all the
other girls in schools wanted.

[Willow] It was really hard to
find models Stephan would like.

I'd send him so many
different kind of models.

I was interested in girls with
really unique facial features.

But it was very clear
the kind of models

and aesthetic
that they wanted.

[woman 7] When I applied,

it was like a shot in the dark
for me, to be honest,

because I am part Asian

and a lot of the girls
in the store,

they were all tall, skinny,
blonde, white girls,

and I was like, "I don't stand
a chance against them."

[dramatic music playing]

I remember I had to submit
a full body photo,

which was really interesting
and also all my social media,

like Instagram handle
and everything.

I feel like a lot
of the questions

weren't what I was expecting.

I feel like they're asking more
about where I like to shop

and, like, what YouTubers
I like to watch.

Nothing really about,
like, my skills,

nothing really about
my work history.

But being 17, and being in love
with Brandy Melville,

I was, like, answering whatever
they wanted me to say.

I started off
as a sales associate.

Me and, like, another minority
Brandy Melville worker

were the only ones
behind the cash register

and we kind of made a joke like,

"Oh, we're always working
together behind the register."

But what I notice is that

the really pretty,
like, model-like white girls,

they got to be the ones
to greet customers,

to be, like,
the face of the store.

[former senior VP] With Asians,
after they opened in China

and the store made
a shitload of money,

Stephan was happy
with Chinese people.

But in regards
of Black people,

he...

he didn't want a lot
of Black people.

[Lee] When I started
working there,

you go down, and you go
into the stockroom

and you see all the other people
who are working there

who are not white.

Yeah, there was an awareness.

But we all just kind of...

side-eyed it
and tried to do our job.

[Kali] I started working
at Brandy Melville

when I was probably just
turning 16.

I was a minor, of course,
so, it's very hard to find jobs

when you're not 18,

and so I was so excited.

[producer] What was
your title or role there?

I started off as fitting room,

and then I eventually moved
to stock.

-[solemn music playing]
-[chatter]

There was no white people
working in the stockroom.

If you're white,
you had to be in sight.

-[screams]
-[laughter]

We all knew it was not right

that we were all, you know,
pushed in the back out of sight.

But it wasn't something
we were necessarily mad about

because I just loved being
around my people.

Like, people of color,
Hispanic and Black people.

So, it was kind of like,

you win some, you lose some.

[dramatic music playing]

Fashion has been built on these
very r*cist, colonial structures

and also on the backs
of women,

mostly women of color.

The way that the industry gets
away with abusive situations

is by dehumanizing
this workforce.

[dramatic music playing]

These women are hidden
from our consciousness.

We have an existing
head-carrying culture,

where we carry buckets
of water,

or maybe, like, five-kg items
on our heads.

[Liz] Kayayei are female
head porters.

It's a term that literally means
"she who carries the burden."

In Kantamanto, they carry bales
of secondhand clothing

that weigh a minimum
of 120 pounds.

So, it's their entire
body weight on their heads.

[Chloe] This is dangerous,

and it's literally backbreaking

if you carry 50 kg
ten times a day.

That's 500 kg
on a woman's body.

[crowd chatter]

A lot of the girls
have chest pains.

They have scoliosis
from the work.

It's literally crushing
cartilage, compressing it.

And some of them,
their spines are fused.

They have, like,
sharp tips here.

So they're in pain every day.

Once you stop the work

then the deterioration
will stop,

but it will not go back
to how it was.

Seeing my sisters
go through it is...

seeing another human being
go through it,

this is wrong.

No one should
have to go through this.

[dramatic music playing]

I've been wanting
more Brandy T-shirts

because
they're such great material

and they're just
the perfect oversized fit.

I just love the way
my beachy necklaces

looked with this button detail.

They have this little,
dainty floral pattern

all over them,
which I think is so cute.

I, one day, was wearing
a shirt to work

that was a little bit unique.

When it came out on the floor,
like, a few weeks later

in a shipment, I was like,

that's the shirt
that I was wearing.

[Kali]
There was this white girl.

We were friends.
She was like, "Oh, my God.

Like, Stephan,
he just paid me $100

for the sweater I am wearing."
So they could copy it!

One day I come in,
the higher ups,

they were like,
"We love your pants."

And they're like,

"Where did you get them,
and can you show us?"

So, I showed them online,
and they bought the pants.

They paid, like, $50
for express shipping.

I didn't get paid for my pants
that they stole,

so I am confused.

Where is my $100?

[Kate] It was such a weird,
ramshackle way

to run a business,
but it worked,

because then they were able
to kind of mass produce

what these cool girls
were already wearing.

In some cases,
the names of these things

on the Brandy Melville website,

it'll be like,
"Jocelyn's Shirt,"

and it'll be because the shirt
was literally purchased

off of Jocelyn's back.

[eerie music playing]

Companies spend hundreds
of millions of dollars

developing a brand.

Brandy doesn't do that.

[former store owner] I don't
understand these big brands.

They have to hire a guy
that is probably in his 40s,

and he has to design clothes
for a 14-year-old girl.

What? Why?

Isn't it easier to ask the

instead of trying to figure out
what she likes?

Um, I like these shirts,
but not this style.

This is too tight to me.

I like this skirt. I have it.

My friend Phoebe
literally was, like,

"Oh, you guys
should sell socks."

And then they started
selling socks.

[Marta] They would ask me to
look up clothes on his computer

and order them,
and then they would remake them.

[former store owner] It happen,
like, a few times.

We had stuff
that had to be recalled

because there was
an infringement

of property rights.

And they would
get a notice from an attorney,

and so, they would call
and tell me,

"Oh, you have to take
all the stuff out."

For a little bit, Jessy was
showing me graphics

and things, "Do you like this?
What about this color?"

"Product research"
was what they called it.

[former senior VP]
The product research girls,

they were girls
that worked there,

and Stephan thought they had,
like, uh, really good style.

[girl] Let's pick an outfit.

[former store owner] They give
credit cards to the girls

that they consider wealthy,

from Malibu or Calabasas.

Very white neighborhoods,
good family.

It's basically the elite.

[former senior VP] It was, like,

"I want that
as my top clientele,

to see what they buy,
to produce what they want."

[girl] So many clothes. Wow.

They come back
with a bunch of bags.

We get in the back.

They try the stuff.

Change a few things
here and there.

See how it fits.

And then we do,
like, maybe 200 pieces.

We test it on Santa Monica.

If it's a bestseller,
we start production.

I am going to China
with Brandy Melville

to do a bunch of, like,
product research and stuff.

I will be going to Milan, Italy
for Brandy Melville.

[dramatic music playing]

The executives would take
certain favorite girls

to China or to Italy.

We're flying business class.
It is so nice.

[girl 1] We saw the Alps
from above.

Guess who just landed
in Guangzhou!

[Willow] The girls would go
to the factory

where a lot of things are made,

and they would have the girls
pick out stuff they liked.

And that was obviously
an amazing trip to get to go on.

[girl 1] We got to the factory,

and I looked through
a lot of samples

and filtered them out
to which ones I liked.

I never finished
the vlog yesterday

because we were in fittings
for, like, so many hours.

[Kate] It was incredibly
competitive

to be invited to be
on one of these trips.

We're living very luxuriously,

and I don't want
to go home, ever.

They were treated like queen.

Best hotel, best restaurants,
best of everything.

[girl 2] I can't wait
to see all of the stuff

that we worked on in China

make it to
all of the stores worldwide.

It'll be so cool to see things

and be, like, hey, like,
I'm the reason

why those jeans
are that color,

or I'm the reason
why those pants fit like that.

So cool.

[Kate] Brandy Melville
harnesses that energy

of "Teenage girls
can do anything.

Teenage girls have
this amazing design capability.

They have this eye
for fashion."

They are paying these people
close to minimum wage

to do what,
at another company,

the senior leadership
might be doing,

to make them extremely rich.

[former store owner]
The clothes, let me tell you.

The clothes were
not that good quality.

It was a very cheap product.

But Stephan was holding himself
as one of the luxury brands.

Some of their stuff
was super soft

but definitely thin,
wouldn't last long.

You'd get holes in the seams.

Even as a sales associate,

having to put a tag
in something,

and just that, like, thin
little needle of a tag

would, like, destroy a shirt.

[former store owner] I had
shorts that completely open up.

Clothes were just,
like, falling apart.

I had entire boxes
that I had to throw away.

For me,
this was mind blowing.

[Kate] A lot of
the Brandy Melville clothing

says "Made in Italy,"

which is,
I think in the U.S.,

a lot of people see as this sign
of quality and luxury.

[Melissa] Brandy was famous for,
like, being produced in Italy.

It's an Italian brand.

But then I started wondering,
"Hm, made in Italy, yeah,

but the quality is quite bad."

And sometimes
I could hear, like,

the owner talking,

and, obviously,
because I speak Italian

and maybe sometimes
they forgot that I understood

everything what they were
talking about,

I could always hear them
talk about

the clothes being produced
in Prato

and, like, pickups from Prato
and factories in Prato.

I always heard about this city.
I was like, what is this Prato?

[dramatic music playing]

[man 4] Prato is the most
important textile hub

in Europe.

It's a real long tradition.

For 100 years,
we are specialized

in the luxury brand.

People come here from other
poor region of Italy to work.

Now we are
the biggest in production

for the most important
fast fashion brands in Europe.

The first Chinese people
in Prato

arrived during the '90s.

Now, they are ten percent
of our population.

They decided to work
for themselves,

opening Pronto Moda factories.

Pronto Moda,
it is fast fashion.

You know, a T-shirt that you use
three, four, or five times,

and then you throw away
because they are very cheap.

It's cheap.
It's very, very cheap.

[in Italian]

[in English]
And the rest is history.

And now, the label
contains the written

"Made in Italy."

They are made in Italy.

They are made in Prato.

[in Italian]

[former senior VP] When
I started working with them,

basically, Brandy Melville

had the biggest factory in Prato
at the moment.

Let's say that they need
to produce

a certain amount of T-shirts.

There is a machine
cutting all the shapes.

And then, all those shapes,

they're given to
a Chinese company that come,

take all the pieces,
and bring it back.

The part I saw was, like,
everyone was pretty happy

because Brandy was getting
a good deal

and everyone was making money.

And if you have, like, a company
like Brandy Melville

that keep producing,
producing, producing,

that's... that's
a good perk in Italy.

I think everybody outsources
their production

for the most part these days.

I mean, very few companies
have in-house production.

Subcontracting happens
in every country.

You'll say, "Factory A,

can you produce this product
for me?"

Factory A will say yes,
but then they will realize

they don't have enough
manpower in-house,

or they've got too many orders
backed up,

so they'll then go down
to Factory B, C, and D

to say, "Can you help me produce
this product?"

All of a sudden,
you've employed four factories

when you thought you were
employing one factory.

Fashion supply chains
are really opaque.

[Matteo in Italian]

[reporter in English]
For Lina Iervasi,

Head of Immigration
at the Prato Police,

raids on Chinese workshops

have become
a familiar occurrence.

Several times a week,

she drops by unannounced

on one of over 3,000
small Chinese businesses,

some of which
employ workers illegally.

[Matteo] There are a lot of
Pronto Moda that are regular.

But sometimes,
not always, but sometimes,

we find people
that was like slaves.

[in Italian]

[Ayesha] Oh, the sweatshop
conversation is not new.

This is an industry
that has always

robbed workers of their wages,

and always had
unsafe conditions.

[reporter] A dress here sells
for just five euros

and a coat for ten.

All the clothes also carry the
coveted "Made in Italy" label,

which helps sell them abroad.

[Ayesha] There is this
perception, somehow,

that if it's made in Italy
that it's somehow better.

The truth of the matter
is that

there are good and bad factories
everywhere,

and if you want
to see sweatshops,

you can see them in Prato,

and you can see them
in Los Angeles,

and in the UK.

They exist right here

in the Western Hemisphere.

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.

Why am I in Brandy Melville,

and I'm looking at the sizes,
looking for sizes,

and there's no sizes
on anything I'm looking at.

And then I find this one shirt,
and it says one size fits all.

How is it still open?

How is a shirt
one size fits all?

[former senior VP]
At first, we had sizes.

At a certain point,
all the sizes disappeared.

If you ask someone,

it's like, so basically,
you're losing sales,

which is true
from a certain point of view.

But Stephan's point of view was,

"We are not losing sales.

We are keeping
the brand exclusive

as, like, a goal.

Like, 'Oh, I need to fit
in these clothes.'"

[Lee] I realized it
on, like, my first shift.

I was like, "Well, like, what
about the mediums and larges?"

And they were like, "Oh no,
we don't have mediums, larges."

And I was like,
"So, it's all small?"

And they were like,
"No, it's not small.

There's no size."

[dramatic music playing]

[former store owner] After
multiple weeks of complaining,

we went from
"one size fits all"

to "one size fits most,"

and we still had complaints

because they go,
"So, I'm not even most?"

[solemn, pensive music playing]

[Lee] I had an eating disorder

that was definitely, like,
at its worst

when I was working
at Brandy Melville.

[Natasha] I was recovering
from an eating disorder

for the three years
I worked there.

I remember when I was
gaining the weight back

to be, you know, like,
a very normal-looking person,

like, I no longer had
a thigh gap,

at that point, I was very much
aware of the pressure to be,

like, skinny.

There was just, like,
too much pressure

to be perfect, I think.

[Isabela] Brandy did put me
in that mindset

where I hated my body.
I hated myself.

A lot of girls suffered with it,

a lot of the girls there.

And I'm still recovering.
You know, I'm still recovering.

Eating disorders are gonna
stay with you for a while.

[Cate] I do remember one time,
there was a customer

who, um, picked up a jacket

and she told me,

"My granddaughter
looks like your size,

you know, kind of bigger."

And those words,
"kind of bigger,"

sent my entire... my entire
shift into a mental orbit

of me thinking, "Am I not
thin enough to work here?"

I had already gone through,
you know, my troubles

of being ultra-thin,

that's not something I ever
wanted to deal with again.

I went to the back, and no one
was telling me it wasn't true.

They were just saying,
"Don't listen, don't listen."

I remember feeling,
like, proud of myself

for gaining, like, five pounds

and then realizing that, like,
if I kept being healthy,

like, I wouldn't be able
to follow company policy

and, like, keep wearing
their clothes.

So, that wasn't good
for my brain.

[former store owner]
I look to the YouTube,

and I found so many video

that these people
were obsessed

with attacking Brandy Melville.

I say to Stephan,

"Okay, did you see
these videos?"

And Stephan goes, "Oh, yeah,
yeah, yeah, yeah.

I know. Well, guess what?

Our sales went up like 20%,
so, who cares?"

That reaction remind me of
the famous phrase of Mussolini.

"Talk bad about me,
talk good about me,

but talk about me
because it's all publicity.

And I don't give a shit
if it's good or bad.

Publicity is publicity."

[dramatic electronic music
playing]

Receiving those complaints
was basically a confirmation

that what we were doing
at the time was working.

I hated having so many
customers come up to me,

being so, like, sad and hurt

that they couldn't find
clothing.

And they would come back
again and again and again

and, like, nothing's
gonna change with Brandy.

[Cate] We are having trouble
fitting into pants here,

when the store is meant for us,

when we're supposed
to be the examples.

There needs to be more sizes.

[producer] What do you think
drives Stephan?

I think what drives him
is try to improve

and always aiming
for perfection.

It's ironic how he was, like,
so picky with his customers.

If you see the way he dress,
he's not perfect either.

His body, I mean, he would
not be a Brandy customer.

He dress like a bum.

He have very strong
political views.

Even talked about that
with his employees,

and his employees
are, like, very young.

In California,
they are mostly liberal.

So, at the time,
I think they were, like,

talking about Bernie Sanders.

And he goes, like, "I can't
believe these little girls,

they didn't do nothing
all day,

their father is rich,

and they are talking about
Bernie Sanders.

Can you believe how f*cked up
is this country?"

He was, like-- he was so mad.

[producer]
But his father was rich.

That, that's exactly his point.

"How you can come
from a wealthy family

and then you want to vote for
this communist, Bernie Sanders?"

[former senior VP]
He is libertarian,

and, uh, he hates taxes.

He tries to do everything
to avoid them.

And it worked out pretty well
so far, I mean, for him.

They had, like, a lot of, like,

libertarian, like,
bumper stickers.

I would see those around.
I don't know who it was,

Ron Paul, or whatever
the name was.

He liked for people to know
that he was libertarian.

[Kate] In the early
Brandy Melville stores,

I heard from former employees,

Stephan Marsan would give

his personal copies
of Atlas Shrugged

to display in the stores.

This Ayn Rand novel,
Atlas Shrugged,

is the foundational text
for libertarians.

It's referenced a lot
by people who have

these strong
anti-taxation beliefs,

anti-regulation
more generally.

I've heard people call it
the bible of Brandy Melville.

[Willow] And they had
the other store, John Galt.

And I had remembered even
asking people in the company,

I was like, "What is this name?"

They're like, "Oh, it's from
some book or some story."

[Kate] John Galt is a character
in Atlas Shrugged.

It's not uncommon for brands

to have these private label
sub-brands.

What is a little bit weird
is that it's called John Galt.

This is a store
for teenage girls,

where they're going to shop
for T-shirts and miniskirts.

This is not some
libertarian social club.

I don't know what happened.

At a certain point, Stephan
started to care more about money

and way less
about people in general.

[Kate] I was reading through
all the lawsuits I could find

that mentioned Brandy Melville.

And as I was looking through
the exhibits of one of them,

something that is mentioned
is text messages

between the senior leadership
at Brandy Melville.

This group chat was called
"Brandy Melville Gags."

And these are some
of the most disturbing,

vilest messages.

We had a group chat.

It was really cheap humor,
I'll say.

[former store owner] It was
someplace where everybody

would get in touch and say hi,
or "Happy Birthday,"

or every time
they found something funny

on social media or on Facebook,
or on Instagram

or wherever they found it,

they would post it there
with a comment and laugh.

It was like a virtual bar.

[producer]
Who was on that text chain?

[former store owner]
Everybody. Everybody.

Everybody from Stephan,
Stephan's brother, me,

the production in Italy.

Everyone.

[Kate] These men
are just sending the most vile,

sexual, r*cist jokes possible
to each other,

again and again and again.

[producer] Did you think
it was funny,

or were you surprised
by some of the content?

Well, you know,
when you see something once,

okay, then it can be funny.

Then it becomes
a little bit worrisome.

I think he enjoyed
the juvenile jokes.

[Kate] This isn't something
that is, like,

"Oh, someone
got overly offended by,

like, a joke on Twitter."

It was shocking how far
they were willing to go.

[producer] Do you think
he was anti-Semitic?

I don't know. I don't.

I mean, when I saw him
wearing a Hitler outfit,

I wasn't surprised.

[dramatic music playing]

Store style photos
were taken every day.

[Natasha] The second
you came up to your shift,

whoever was in charge
that day would be like,

"Time to take your store style."

They would take a photo of you

and send it to Stephan
and Jessy.

Another weird thing.

Like, why did they need
to do that?

"Time for your photo.

Like, go stand against
that wall and pose

so I can text it to the founder
of the company you work for."

[Sheridan] And for me, it was,
like, a very quick,

"Let's just get this done,
and I'm over it,"

but some girls would be gone
for 20 minutes of their shift

because they're doing
a full photo sh**t in the back.

We were kind of told,
you know, "The photos

are potentially
if we want you to model for us."

[Emily] At first, it was only
full body photos.

And then,
they started requesting

chest and feet pictures,
which I was like, what?

[Sheridan] And you're, like,
okay, now, wait,

where are all these photos
going of me

in, like, a crop top
and a little skirt?

[producer] What was
the rationale behind it?

Um... I don't really know what.

[Cate] One time,
we were closing,

and I asked, "Where do
these photos that we take go?"

And it went dead silent.

And one of the older girls said

that we're not allowed
to talk about it.

And that's when I went, oh, no.

There's something going on
that I don't know about,

and I don't feel safe anymore.

So, I put in my two weeks,
and I left.

[dramatic music playing]

[mellow, funky music playing]

[former senior VP] For
each store, we had a group chat

with the managers, myself,
and Stephan.

We received the pictures
from our girls,

and if Stephan didn't
like some of them,

he would have sent it
back to me privately

and say, "Fire her."

[producer] Did Stephan
hire and fire people

based on their looks?

Of course he did.

[producer] What kind of reasons
would you say?

Because you can't say
it's because you're ugly or fat,

because that's illegal.

What would you say?

They're, like,

You can find, like, 700
different reasons to fire them.

Like, it's too easy.

Like-like, that...
that wasn't even fair.

And then, day after,
we were hiring other people.

I was basically
being Stephan's eyes,

making sure
the store was perfect,

up to standards.

[Melissa] When I was working
in Berlin,

some Brandy Melville guys
from Italy

came to the shop
and observed us,

made weird comments
about us and our bodies.

From one day to the other,

they told me that I have
to leave,

and I was so shocked.

And there was this woman,

she was the one that I also
had the initial interview with.

I asked her, I was like,
"Can you please tell me

the real reason
why you're firing me,

because I cannot believe
that I have done a bad job."

She told me that one of these
managers that came to the shop,

that he did not like
my body type.

He did not find me,
like, physically attractive,

and that I'm not a typical
Brandy girl.

My colleagues were,

they were so shocked
from that day

that they also quit.

[solemn music playing]

I was told that if I see
a girl shopping in the store

that has, like, Brandy style,

that I should take a--
ask to take a photo of them.

We were told to go up to them,
um, compliment them,

kind of, like, sugar them up
and, like, get them talking.

I would say, "Hey,
do you mind if I take a photo

of what you're wearing?
It's really cute.

We do this for market research,

and it's just gonna
get sent to leadership,"

and they would be, like,
normally, pretty flattered.

Then I would just send it like
a regular employee store style

to Stephan and Jessy.

Quite often, they
would respond and say, like,

"Hire her right now,"
um, if they really liked her.

[Kate] One of the former
employees I talked to

said that she was working
in the New York flagship store,

and she came up behind Stephan

and she looked over
and he had a folder.

In the folder was every
single one of the photos

that she'd sent over
the years for this daily image.

She said that, looking back,
that was

such a chilling,
eerie thing to realize,

that these photos
were being kept by Stephan.

[Marta] Stephan's office was,
like, sort of a bird's nest

overlooking the registers.

And that's where him and other
people that were high up

would hang out.

Like, one day,
I came into work,

and there were these
clear buttons

with sort of, like,
electrical system setup

right next to every register.

It was a system
that Stephan used

to inform the person working
at the register

that they should take a photo
of the girl that's checking out.

The red button goes off

and then you're supposed
to take a photo

and also offer them a job
as well.

[producer] Did you do that?

Yeah. Sometimes,
we would ignore it

because, I don't know,
we were kind of rebellious

with a couple of our friends
and we didn't want to do that.

Um, but yeah, we had to.

[Lee] One night,
we were all leaving

and I see this girl,
like, getting an Uber.

And I was like, "Oh man,
I wish I could afford Ubers."

She's like,
"Oh, I'm not paying for this."

I was like, "What do you mean?"

And she was like, "I, like,
have, like, the company Uber."

She referenced
an apartment in New York,

and she made it clear
that, like,

if you didn't know
about the apartment,

then you wouldn't know
about the Ubers.

[dramatic music playing]

[Willow] I had never, ever been
to New York before.

And Jessy had talked about,
"Oh, we should have you

come out to New York
for the summer

and sh**t for Brandy."

I was like, "Yeah.
Sounds amazing. I'd love to."

He said, "We have an apartment
and you can stay there."

It was in an amazing location
in SoHo.

It was really close to both
of the stores that they had.

There was really nothing
in the apartment

when I first got there.
I didn't even have a blanket.

There were times where
people would just show up.

Like, I remember
walking downstairs,

and it was dark, maybe, like,
ten o'clock or something,

and, like, turn the light on,

and there was a girl asleep
on the couch.

And that was, like,
she scared the crap out of me

because I thought
I was home alone.

I remember one day,
this guy showed up.

Had no idea, like,
who this person is.

They're like, "Oh yeah, he does

stuff with the store,
this and that.

He's gonna be staying
in this room."

I was, like, "Okay."
But it was definitely strange.

It was strange to be
living with a man,

like, in his 30s, 40s,
I don't know how old he was,

when I was, like,
still a teenager.

[Kate] An employee who I spoke
with, she was here on a visa.

She was 21 years old.

She had been working at
Brandy Melville for a few years.

This employee told me
that she needed to stay

in the Brandy apartment
in New York

for a couple of nights.

To her surprise,
a middle-aged Italian man

who was involved
in Brandy Melville

was also staying there.

He took this 21-year-old out.

She remembers having
a first drink,

a second drink.

Then she doesn't
remember anything.

And she woke up the
next morning in the apartment,

naked with this man.

Her hospital records
at the time, which I've read,

say that she said that she was
r*ped by her boss,

and that she does not
want to report it to the police

because she doesn't want
to lose her job

and be forced
out of the country.

She kind of sucked it up
and just lived with it.

This was one of
the most horrifying things

that I heard about while
reporting on Brandy.

It was the worst parts
of Brandy,

where it took something
that was a job

and a community for people,

and just turned it
into this place

where women
were exploited,

in this case assaulted.

It-it's...
Yeah, it was horrifying.

There was a sense of competition
between all the girls.

And you... you really
wanted to look your best

every time you walked in there.

You want to feel like you have
a relationship with Stephan.

I was so scared to ask
them for a raise,

because I was just, like,
I don't want to get fired,

or I don't want them
to kind of hate me

or be on their bad side. Um...

[producer] Were you a bit scared
of Stephan?

Yes. [laughs]

Like, it was all part of, like,

some members-only club

where the best
and the favorite got the perks.

Um, I did not get the perks.

[laughs]

The Brandy account
only followed,

like, six people
or something like that,

and it was always, like,
a big deal

that they followed you.
It was this elite thing,

That's what it felt like for me.
Don't know if it meant anything.

But, um, I remember
one day realizing

that they unfollowed me.

And it was just kind of
like a, "What the f*ck?"

Like, "What did I do?
Did I do anything?"

I remember texting Jessy
and asking him,

like, "Did I do something wrong?

Like, I don't, like,
I don't know what's going on."

He was, like,
"Instagram means nothing."

[dramatic music playing]

But clearly it does.

Instagram
is your entire business.

How can it mean nothing?

[Kali] It's a cult.

Like, people are obsessed

with this idea
of Brandy Melville,

and there's always going to be
this Brandy Melville

look and mold.

I just wish someone
had kind of, like,

stepped in and, like,
made us realize, like,

this isn't okay,
this isn't normal.

This isn't how jobs
are supposed to be.

[dramatic electronic music
playing]

Fast fashion
has created an industry

that's completely
unhinged from reality,

and it addicts people
to buy more and more clothes

every single season.

People are overconsuming,

and all this excess
leads to the waste crisis.

[crowd chatter]

[Sammy] With our research,
we've found out

that about 40%
of the garments

that come into Kantamanto Market

goes into the waste stream.

[Liz] There's no landfill.
Most of the clothing is burnt

or ends up being pushed
into the gutter system

where eventually
it washes out to sea.

[grim music playing]

[Chloe] Like, everywhere
you walk, there's fabric,

textile waste everywhere

with tentacles as long
as, like, that.

Even more,
and I'm a little person.

[Liz] We've dug down
over eight feet

and still haven't reached
the end

of some of these tangles
and mounds.

Eventually, it makes
its way out to sea.

And so, we believe that
the sea floor around Accra

looks exactly like this,

if not much worse,

because all of the stuff
has sunk.

[solemn music playing]

[Chloe] And this
is not something that we did.

It's not something
that we caused.

[dramatic music playing]

[man 5]

[dramatic music playing]

[Chloe] From the beginning of
the supply chain to the end,

we're all being
exploited by the same system.

When you look at
the women who farm,

you know, who pick cotton,

when you look at
garment workers,

the kayayei women
are being exploited.

You know, their bodies
are being exploited.

The retailers
are being exploited.

A lot of them are women.

Some of them have
no idea the impacts of it.

[Liz] Ghana's coast
was the main port of exit

for human beings
who were trafficked as slaves

to North America to work,

many of them on cotton fields
to make clothes.

And now, it's the main
port of entry

for secondhand clothing
being sent back here as waste.

So, that is a continuation
of colonialism

and sl*very in another form.

[solemn music playing]

[Kate] In the course of looking
into the Brandy Melville story,

I found these two lawsuits

that were essentially
against Brandy Melville

from former executives.

These are very,
very serious allegations

of racism here,

which the company denied
in preliminary court filings.

I had the Brandy Melville
store close to Toronto,

where there is, like, a big
Indo-Pacific community,

lots of Indians,
lots of Pakistani,

a lot of, you know.

Stephan start to say that
the place was "ghetto,"

and, "How do you
open a store like that?"

And I go, "Well, very easy.

I'm making $300,000
a year in this store.

What do you mean?"

And he said, like, uh,
"Are you serious?

You have
all these brown people,

and this is not
our target customer."

[producer] Was Stephan directly
telling you to close down,

or was it somebody else?

No, it was Stephan.

He say, like, "You are going
to have to close,

and that's it."

He actually told me that.

"It's either you close
the store,

or there
is no more merchandise."

[former senior VP] I received
a picture back from Stephan

of the manager of Newport,
saying...

[speaks in Italian]

[in English] Which means
she's, like, a communist,

alternative girl, like,
with the piercings.

"She's gonna hire
people like her,

and she's going to destroy
the f*cking store."

That's what he said.

I wouldn't fire her.

And then, he said,
"No, no, fire her."

I couldn't let her go.
So I didn't.

And, uh, after, like,
a couple weeks of this,

like, retaliation,
and I was like, "No.

If you're trying
to change my words,

deal with my lawyers."

I mean, if you only like to go
and shout in the street

you don't like Blacks,
you don't like Jews,

if it's that, it's different.

But when you are in position
that controls a company

that hires thousands of people,

then, uh, that is not cool
anymore.

He need to be punished,
or at least brought to justice.

[gentle, solemn music playing]

[Kate] This story took over
my life for a summer, basically.

I published,

and then, almost immediately,
people who had worked

at Brandy Melville
started reaching out.

People had even more stories
to share.

They all fit into this just
wider story of exploitation.

It was really overwhelming.

[Willow] I remember seeing it
on Instagram from diet_prada,

which I feel is where everyone
else found out about it.

But I was reading the article
and I was shocked.

I was shocked about
the n*zi stuff that came out.

I was like, what?

It's, like, you knew he was
not necessarily a good person.

But reading the article,

I... I was... I was
honestly blown away

by some of the stuff.

I was shocked,
but I was not surprised at all.

I also felt disgusted
having worked

for a company like this.

I had so many feelings.

I was like,
"I have to comment."

[Lee]
It was definitely satisfying

to read all those comments.

I was like, finally,
someone's talking about it.

Maybe this will be the time

that people rip the veil of,

you know, elitist aesthetics
and all of that,

and expose them for just being
a really shitty brand

that makes money off of
young girls' insecurities.

[Kate] Social media is what made
Brandy Melville,

but it was social media
that provided the opportunity

to take down Brandy Melville,
as well.

Now it's our time to shine.

If you still support
Brandy Melville,

you absolutely shouldn't,
and here's why.

Saying racism and sexual
exploitation run rampant.

Someone who used to be
the store manager there,

I got some stories of my own.

I printed out pages
of the article,

and I went around SoHo
hanging them up.

I had on a wig so I wouldn't
be, like, spotted easily.

And some of my friends,
they were helping me out.

They put it in the store,
all around the store for me.

[lumbering, dramatic rock music
playing]

[Emily] I talked to my manager,
and I was like,

"Hey, like,
I can't do this anymore."

[all] f*ck Brandy!

[cheering]

I just... I just
never showed up again.

I sent an email to my
hiring manager and was like,

"I'm not gonna be
working my shift today,

and I'm not going to be
coming in again, ever."

And she was just like,
"Okay."

Um... "Bye."

There's no reason to believe
this has hurt

Brandy Melville sales at all.

[former store owner]
When Business Insider

come out with the story,

I was pretty shocked
that it didn't get anywhere.

I was, like, wow.

That's weird because
everybody talks about,

you know, the social issue
and this and that.

They make a big deal
out of it politically.

But then, at the end,
when something comes up,

people have a short memory,

or they just...
they just don't care.

I was in touch with one of the
people that still work there,

and they were telling me
the numbers,

and they are doing amazing.

[former senior VP]
Brandy Melville got hit, yeah.

But for how long?

For a day? Two?
A week? That's it.

They come back
to business as usual.

[producer] They've made
a lot of money, right?

Oh, yeah.
Like, hundreds of millions.

[dramatic music playing]

[Kate] There is no reason
to believe that Brandy

has changed its internal
strategy in any way.

They did not even publish
an apology on social media.

Most companies would say
"We messed up, we'll do better.

We're going
to make these changes.

This executive
is going to be fired."

The only thing that happened
at Brandy Melville

was that they stopped
letting people comment

on their Instagram
for a couple of weeks.

I am relatively pessimistic
about corporate leadership

and how much they really
believe in inclusivity.

But for a CEO to not even
pretend to care

was so brazen.

By never admitting
they did something wrong,

they can kind of continue
keeping the business model

exactly the way it is.

Brandy Melville still is able
to find people

to work at these stores

and to appear
on their Instagram.

Brandy Melville still is able
to tap into the worst impulses

of being a teenage girl--

wanting to be the coolest girl
at your school

and, like, wanting
to do anything to be that girl.

We know that Stephan
has always said,

"I don't need
to be politically correct."

We know that Brandy Melville,
from the beginning,

has said, "One size fits most.
This isn't for everyone."

So, by not apologizing,
they're not hypocrites

because they are exactly
who they say they are.

They are just r*cist,
sexist pigs.

[dramatic music playing]

[Claire] I don't think we expect
businesses to be good anymore,

which I think is
seriously problematic.

I mean, labor issues
and the fashion industry,

they go hand in hand.

[Ayesha] Make no mistake,
this is not an industry

that has any
kind of commitment

to ethical commercial practices.

You know, fashion,

particularly when it comes
to human rights

and the environment,
is very unregulated.

The footprint of a product,

the footprint of the industry
is very opaque.

You know, this is an industry
that gets to set its own goals,

and then if
they don't meet those goals

they just change the goalposts.

I have a lot of empathy
for the end customer

who's trying to do
the right thing

and is thoroughly confused,
you know?

You have a lot of
greenwashing out there.

Brands that are essentially
co-opting people's interest

in sustainability

and essentially
selling that back to you.

And if a company's only talking
about environmental goodness

and nothing about the face
and the humans behind it,

then that is also a form
of greenwashing.

This is not a poor industry.

It's worth
three trillion dollars.

You're telling me an industry
worth three trillion dollars

can't find solutions?

[birds chirping]

[gentle music playing]

[Claire]
We know what we need to do.

The solutions that existed
a long time ago

are the same solutions
that exist now.

They're just not being scaled.

[Matteo] One hundred years ago,

before the climate change,

before the-the greenwashing,

we started to recycle
material here in Prato.

Uh, it was a tradition.

[man 6 in Italian]

[man 7 in English] We are a
textile company based in Prato.

Myself and my brother
are the third generation,

and we are continuing

what my grandfather
started in 1941.

[male interviewer in Italian]

[Marco in English]
There is no use of chemicals,

only a mechanical process.

[Matteo M.] The durability of
our fabric's very important.

We are doing the fabrics
that they can pass

from father to son.

But also recyclability
of our fabric is endless.

[man 8 in Italian]

[dramatic music playing]

[Sammy in English] Kantamanto
is one of the perfect models

of sustainability,
if you'd ask me.

I mean, from the outside
it may only look like

people who just retail
secondhand clothing,

but it's a whole ecosystem
of sustainable practices.

The people that work here

have to deal with
whatever trash, literally,

that comes their way.

So, you have people
who are screen printing,

we have people who are mending,
people who are embroidering,

people who are resizing.

So, these people
are using basics

like a sewing machine
and a pair of scissors

to recycle 25 million
out of the 60 million garment

that comes through the markets
within a month.

If you'd ask the people
that work in the market

"What is sustainability?"
they might probably not know

because what they are doing
is out of culture,

not out of a trend.

[crowd chatter]

Ghanaians like
to repurpose things.

Ghanaians like to give
long life to things.

Swapping and upcycling
is a culture

that has existed with us
for a very, very long time.

[man 9 in Twi]

[Liz in English]
Sustainability is a language,

and, here,
people still speak it.

It's a way for people
to deal with a system

that is exploiting them,
that has dumped stuff here

that then they can't get out of.

You know, if we want to solve
the problem

of fast fashion consumption,

then we need to
listen to the people

who still do speak
that language

and-and can help us learn.

Rebellion! Rebellion!

You know, one of the only tools
that activists like us

would have in our toolbox

used to be that you campaign

and you create scandal,

and then you hope conditions
get better.

But there's almost become
an immunity to this

because there are so many
scandals in this industry.

There's a sense
that we can get away with it.

And as long as sales are humming
and people are buying,

it doesn't matter.

And Brandy Melville is
another example of just a blip.

You have a scandal,

and then it's just
business as normal.

Brandy Melville
has only expanded more.

Their China business,
in particular, is booming.

[grim music playing]

From what I've heard
from sources,

it basically takes the
worst parts of Brandy in America

and plays them up.

[dramatic music playing]

It's even more toxic
and more disturbing.

The sizes are smaller.

There was
something that went viral

on Chinese social media
called the BM Challenge.

Can you fit into this
tiny Brandy Melville outfit?

You have Chinese teenagers

who are starving themselves
to fit into the clothes.

How small can you be?

It's replicating the story
in the U.S.,

just in a different market,

and it's created an entire wave
of fashion in China.

[Liz] Fast fashion brands
convince you to buy so much

because they convince you
that you are not enough.

You can never have enough.
You will never be enough.

But instead,
we could realize,

oh, wow, this thing
called clothing,

check it off of humanity's list.

We've made plenty.

Now all we need to do
is be creative with it,

and we could actually
enjoy that

instead of consuming things
for the sake of consuming them.

[Ayesha] Almost a hundred pair
of human hands

touches a garment
before it reaches you.

I think about, gosh, if we had
a label on our clothes

that told that entire story,

how you treat
your garment workers,

how you treat
your retail workers,

would our relationship
with our clothes

be fundamentally different?

[solemn music playing]

[Sammy] We are a part
of the problem,

no matter where you live
in the world.

The fact that it's not
in your backyard

does not mean
it's not your problem.

Just because you are
not seeing, you know,

a beach as dirty as
the one we see here in Ghana

does not mean
it does not affect you.

So, like, the question
we need to ask,

where do I stand
in this problem?

What can I do to make
an impact?

[Willow] These clothing
companies will

keep getting to get
away with it

and making money,
and people keep buying it,

and I... I don't
understand why.

But so many other things
are upsetting

and don't make sense
right now.

So, I... I don't really know.

All I know is I don't do
any kind of work

with fast fashion companies,

and I haven't since
I worked with Brandy.

[Sheridan] I always try my best
to think about

where things came from,
is it gonna end up in landfill,

could I do something better,
is there a better alternative?

[Lee] I only thrift now.

I mean, there is literally
no reason not to thrift.

[Ayesha] This is not a sprint.

This is going to be
a lifelong fight.

Think of the fashion
as a service

and a reusable service

rather than
a disposable product.

Let's normalize
culture to say,

"Yeah, you saw me yesterday
wearing the same thing,

and that's just fine."

[Claire] I mean, the future is
not shiny without real change.

It's pretty grim.

There's a lot of people
that think

that this is too hard
to solve,

and it's just not.

The solutions exist.

But to me, the best
we can do right now,

we just have to buy less.

[dramatic music playing]

-[music fades]
-[sea birds squawk]

[funky, dramatic electronic
music playing]

[music fades]