As "Brandy Hellville & The Cult of Fast Fashion" (2024 release; 92 min) opens, we hear from a young woman, talking about her first purchase at Brandy Mellville when she was a 7th grader. We then go back in time to learn about the origins of the company, with its Italian founder Stephen Marsan quickly focusing in on the US market despite not speaking English whatsoever. At this point we are 10 minutes in the movie.
Couple of comments: this is the latest documentary from Oscar-winning producer-writer-director Eva Orner ("Taxi to the Dark Side"). Here she pulls back the curtain on a company that became a phenom for teenage girls (core focus on 14-15-16 year olds). Also how skinny white teenage girls (preferable with blond hair and blue eyes) were the key focus for store employees. Then it gets much worse, including among others blatant anti-Semitism among the company management. The documentary also addresses the waste crisis resulting from fast fashion. The footage from Ghana is shocking, to say the least. (Note that this waste crisis is also addressed in another recent documentary called "Buy Now: The Shopping Conspiracy".) Combine off of these separate but related issues, and this makes for very sobering viewing, and then some.
"Brandy Hellville & The Cult of Fast Fashion" premiered at this year's South by Southwest festival, to immediate acclaim. This documentary is currently rated 100% Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, which seems quite generous to me. This is now streaming on Max, where I saw it the other night. If you have any interest in Brandy Melville's business practices or in the crisis of waste, I'd readily suggest you check this out, and draw your own conclusion.
