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‘A very odd and ugly worldview’: the dark side of fast fashion brand Brandy Melville
The successful clothing store is the focus of a new film that uncovers shadowy business practices and a bigger picture of environmental damage
Over the past decade and a half, the brand built a giant following via Instagram, Tumblr and TikTok posts of and by teenage girls channeling a certain recognizable aesthetic: tiny outfits accentuating pre-adult metabolisms, exposed midriffs so taut they seem to be begging for a tape measure, long hair flowing cheerily in motion, overwhelmingly white. Photograph: HBOWorse, too, in the company’s dogged pursuit of a business model that, like other fast fashion retailers such as Zara and H&M, prioritizes churn and zeitgeist over quality, clogging landfills and exploiting cheap human labor. The film offers the standard small prescriptions to sustainable fashion: buy natural fibers and secondhand, avoid polyester, recycle and reuse, keep your clothes out of a landfill as long as possible.
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