An obscure Italian brand is suddenly the hottest name in teen retail
Facebook/Brandy Melville
The company, which sells a wide array of tiny crop tops, high-waisted bottoms, and slouchy sweaters, didn't exist in the US until five years ago.
It still has a small store presence in the country - just 18 stores total - but thanks to a robust e-commerce business, it's now ranked No. 1 among brands that teen girls in the US say they are starting to wear, according to Piper Jaffray's most recent survey on teen spending. The company wasn't even ranked among the top 10 up-and-coming brands in previous surveys.
Brandy Melville's recent rise has been helped by its popular Instagram account, which has more than two million followers and mainly features the same group of ultra-skinny, long-haired white girls posing in the brand's clothes.
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Some of the girls appear to be professional models. Others are part of Brandy Melville's teen focus group, many of whom have become famous on the internet as a result of their exposure to the brand's followers, reports Racked.
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"It's fun because we just come up with cool things that we like and then put them on a T-shirt," she told Rubin. "For the Instagram, the marketing team will send us out with clothes and have us take pictures with a photographer and then they'll decide what to post."
Kjerstin now has more than 45,000 Instagram followers, up from 3,000 before she started working for Brandy Melville. Girls sometimes come into the Santa Monica store and ask to take pictures with her, she said.
Most of the Brandy Melville's styles are one-size-fits-all, which has drawn some criticism.
"The last thing women need is another company creating low self-esteem and body image issues," blogger Laura Zaneuth writes. "I will not support a Brandy Melville or any company that discriminates the majority of women."
But the company isn't backing down. The sizing system is core to its marketing strategy. Prominently displayed black-and-white placards throughout the stores read: "One size fits most."
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Brandy Melville's marketing is reminiscent of how Abercrombie & Fitch rose to prominence in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Abercrombie's advertising featured frolicking, half-naked co-eds, which upset many parents and made the brand even more attractive to their kids.
But unlike Abercrombie, Brandy Melville's ads don't feature any men.
Here's a look inside some of the stores, from the company's Instagram account:
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