"If it was black or it was fat, I didn't love them in the store": Research on racism and sexism in the Brandy Melville brand

Hitler memes, sexual exploitation and discrimination. Brandy Melville, the Italian megacadena of fast fashion clothing that is addressed to adolescents, according to an insider investigation, is held under a sexist, racist and anti -Semitic business policy. The signature that congregates an aspirational female cult around thinness With mini shorts, crop tops and XXL hair - for something most of their garments are in a single size - neither does it seem to have an inclusive labor policy: according to the report signed by Kate Porter, it is required that whoever wants to work there must deliver a photo In full body to executives, who will reject them if they are not considered attractive, thin or white. In a firm in which the workers facing the public - the majority is female - are late adolescents, the report reveals incidents and private conversations, as well as the testimony of 32 workers and extrabajadores in the US of the textile firm on the treatment about the treatment vexatatory on employees.

In Insider's investigation Luca Rotondo, former senior vice president of the company, where he alleges discriminatory policies were led by the CEO Stephan Marsan, who opened the first stores of Brandy Melville in Italy in the 90s and then expanded to the statesUnited in 2009. "If it was black or if I was fat ... I didn't want them in the store," he says Broken.

The text reveals that in the main store in New York, the senior executives, a group of thirty -year -old men led by Marsan, worked from an elevated area in which they saw adolescents who came to buy at the store.If they liked what they saw (mostly white, blond and thinstore.

Among them, a screenshot of a message where Marsan supposedly rejects a applicant for his physique.The photo, dated in September 2019, showed an image of an aspirant manager of a store in Newport Beach, California.When writing in Italian, Marsan told Rotando that the store "was just hiring shit aunts" and ran the risk of breaking.And he added: "I kick it."

Eight employees who worked for the company since 2013 have in the text that the salary of an employee was often based only on his photo;Those who were more attractive were offered a higher rate.On the other hand, black employees were often relegated to the warehouse or schedules with less public influx, employees who fired when a white young woman was hired, according to the workers' story.A former regional manager of New York Anonymous said that discrimination was flagrant and recalled: "There was no way to sweeten him ... it was,‘ she is thin, white, blonde and beautiful, let's hire her. '"

The text also reveals sexual harassment scenes, as described by some of the store members, which appeared to whisper in the ear or handle the young women.An old manager reveals that one of her partners, owner of several franchises, sexually assaulted her in 2015 in one of the apartments that the brand has in the Soho.

It seems that the main executives of Brandy Melville and Marsan himself used to share jokes about Adolf Hitler and the Holocaust in a group chat entitled "Brandy Melville Gags."According to the text, the dictator was mentioned 24 times in 150 message screenshots reviewed by Insider, including an image that showed Marsan's head in Hitler's body, an image that he supposedly created himself.The photo of a emaciated woman in underwear is also mentioned and with a girdle that said: "Miss Auschwitz 1943".

Meanwhile, Brandy Melville faces two complaints from Canadian owners who say they were fired to refuse to hire employees based on their looks.

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