Brandy Melville - AIBU to find it a bit toxic in its marketing?

I have health conditions and am on medication that causes weight loss/makes it hard to gain. I am a size 4 and that's with daily supplements. Some people don't realise that the comments can cause the same upset as commenting on a bigger person.

As for BM, I have always found it weird that their USP is only stocking one size/a limited range of sizes. But it's clearly doing well.

It’s funny you can be naturally slim, but nobody accepts you can be naturally fat.

Exactly. There are plenty of slim/very slim girls and women who are perfectly healthy and not “underweight” for their body type. Some people are naturally very slim.

I can only assume that those accusing slim people of having eating disorders or being “mean bit*hes” are trying to make themselves feel better about their own bodies which they’re clearly unhappy with.

For those saying that a teen who is a size 4-8 is by default underweight, why do you think that? Do you expect kids to go from children's clothes, to being a size 10 or 12 with nothing in between? My dd is 16 and a swimmer and a rower who eats really well but is also tall and a slender build and a size 6 (as all of her rowing friends are and as I was as a teen). I think it's mad to expect teens to suddenly be what you consider 'woman' sized.i had a childhood of people telling me and my best friend we were too skinny. We didn't have eating disorders!

I don’t love the single sizing thing myself, but my teen DD quite likes their stuff. She’s filled out a little now, but struggled in the past to get things small enough to fit her because she’s so slim hipped. She’s perfectly healthy and a competitive gymnast and her weight has no bearing on her personality.

Are you IK with her calling women mean bitches based on the clothes size they have? Being thin doesn’t mean you are not a nice person. It has zero reflection on one’s personality.

Your daughter sounds lovely.

I’ve always thought this.. tiny clothes.

The clothes fit me and DD as we are both petite. (Short , but not especially thin) However I do think if aimed at teens specifically there should potentially be a range of sizes

They definitely serve a purpose. My DD shopped there a lot in her teens as she was just too slim for most other high street brands. Zara was OK too but she was often too tall for their clothes. She didn't and still doesn't have an eating disorder, neither of us could gain weight as teens regardless of what we ate.

I hate that slim girls and women get called not real women because of their weight or that they clothes get critisised because not everyone can fit into them. Why can we not just have at least a few brands that specialise in slim, tall, large, short, petit, whatever clothes without other people feeling left out? Nobody is critising Evans for only having larger sizes or Long Tall Sally for having clothes for taller women.

I have a daughter got excited about BM 2 or 3 years ago. She soon got over the hype. The clothes are poorly made for their price and fit is an issue, if like her, you suddenly found yourself with an hourglass figure, which is quite tough for a teenager. We’ve found some much nicer clothes in Subdued for not much more.

In that case, shops marketing to overweight people are just as bad. That’s very unhealthy

It is if thr audience they are targeting is underweight children.

This thread is pretty crazy. There's nothing wrong with marketing to a specific audience. Not all teenagers are in size 16 clothes.

They have shops all over the world and always seem packed. So what do you mean by 'realistic sizes'? Clearly many many young women and girls are shopping there, are they not real?

My 16 yearold is a fan. She is very tall and between a 4 and a 6. She is NOT anorexic nor a 'mean girl'. Ffs.

I agree. It seems designed to stoke insecurity about size, even borderline pro anorexia behaviour.

A friend’s daughter, who is 17 and has had a long history of eating disorders, got scouted to model for them because she apparently had the “Brandy look”. It’s very obvious this child has eating disorders and I thought it was cynical and irresponsible.

No of course it doesn’t have to be for everyone but they are targeting impressionable young women and I think they ought to provide a more realistic range of sizes.

My 16 year old often steals her younger brother's t shirts. In the 90s the baby tee was a thing and I have noticed it coming back. I also don't think there is anything wrong with one size

Does she have any redeeming features? Why haven't you pulled her up on her hypocrisy.

Being petite is not a personality trait.

Yes it’s actually good quality my dd1 had loads and it’s now all dd2’s and is still in good condition

It’s not even a consistent ‘one size’ some items are much bigger than others

Yep. I am a 51 yr old who wears Brandy Melville stuff still (hand me downs from my teens) - I am neither mean, nor a non-woman. I suspect the girl that says all size 8 girls are mean bitches has a bit of a chip on her shoulder.

Why do women find it acceptable to have a go at women who are thinner than them. It is absolutely bizarre. We've had mean bitches and now we aren't women. Womens weight just makes people absoutely mental.

Perhaps all the people on here who, when slim people say they get abuse, say no they don't it's only fat people - may want to remember this comment. You are a mean bitch if you are a size 8, ok then. I can't imagine hearing my child saying that and feeling anything other than embarrassment.

Was just going to say that, every time I iron my daughters t shirts I think these feel really good quality. They also (in the UK) play excellent music in there , unlike the dreaded Subdued which blasts out men shouting rude things.

I do look at some of the staff and think if you are not anorexic I will plait fog but conversely, why shouldn't there be a shop that sells things for that size, some young women are very slight - the t shirts will fit up to a size 10 so it's not like you have to be a size 4 to go in there.

I think their recruitment policy can be a bit suss ie you appear to need to look like a model to work there and interestingly, the only non white person I have ever seen working there was in the changing room which did make me wonder. My daughter and I do talk about these things - but then the bloke that owned Lululemon was similarly problematic , except apparently he was quite open about not wanting people above a certain size to wear his leggings.

This made me laugh out loud. Last time I went into an Evans admittedly years ago it was predominantly cold shoulder tops and waterfall cardigans presumably to warm up those cold shoulders. I didn’t have to battle a huddle of wistful size 6 women to get to them!