BuzzFeed's takedown of Brandy Melville's idea of "one size fits all".

[randomness]

Refinery29 did a post about what happened when BuzzFeed found five women of varying sizes to try on seven pieces from Brandy Melville:

[W]hile A&F has seen its fair share of controversy, Brandy Melville perpetuated a contentious concept Abercrombie has not: one-size-fits-all clothing. With almost 50 stores worldwide and a booming e-commerce site, the Italian-based retailer has popularized the “Brandy Girl” image. She’s the high-school popular girl with long hair and even longer legs, and she's attended Coachella for the last five years. She is also, it seems, probably between a size 00 and 2. At last, BuzzFeed decided to call the all-American retailer on its narrow definition of "all."

I like that BuzzFeed found women with a wide variety of body shapes to try pieces on, apparently without having to go beyond their own staff. Their reactions are occasionally surprising and often hilarious.

Kristen had what I thought was the best one-sentence summary: "I don’t think these clothes are so much ‘one size fits all’ as much as they are ‘one size fits a mystery size, to be revealed when you actually try it on.’"

Comments

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

I am still dying of laughter over “This is hands down the fanciest diaper I have ever worn.” Maaaan, those shorts.

Trying those clothes on for a photographer and writing that article took a lot of guts. I think it's maybe not easy to realize that, because they handled it with such grace, but it takes a certain level of confidence, and takes having already done the work of rejecting some of our notions of ideal womanhood, to feel comfortable trying on those clothes. It's for exactly the reasons one of them said: that if one of these one-size-fits-most items does not fit you that sends the message that you're not right somehow. I'm about Kristin's size, though with more mass higher and in the front I think, and I couldn't have done this. (Partly because of gender identity stuff, I grant you, but a LOT of it would be about body shape for me.)

Also I loved seeing the photo of them together at the end, because my brain really wanted them to be the same height even though I read their heights. That was REALLY cool.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Trying those clothes on for a photographer and writing that article took a lot of guts.

Oh, totally. It did help, I think, that they were doing it together, because--aside from perceived safety in a group--they were collectively showing that the clothes weren't right for most body shapes, as opposed to being singled out for having a body shape that was "wrong".

Also I loved seeing the photo of them together at the end, because my brain really wanted them to be the same height even though I read their heights.

I really liked that photo, too. They shot the individual photos to make each person look similar against the clothing, which was the right way to do what they were trying to do, but the photo with them all together really emphasized how different their body sizes were from each other. I think it was very important to do that.

I nearly put that photo at the top of my post, but then decided that I wanted people to click through. It's possible I should have put it at the top anyway.