Brands like Brandy Melville are body shaming us
Many clothing stores offer a variety of sizes, typically starting at extra-small and stopping at extra-large. This size range — while somewhat diverse — is not accessible for a large portion of the American population, many of whom fall above those sizes. Clothing is one of the many ways people express themselves and promote self-confidence. This opportunity should not be taken away by a lack of appropriate sizes. Clothing brands that only sell a limited amount of sizes are a problem, and those that sell only one size of clothing are egregious.
Only offering one sized clothing size should not be allowed because it forces people to conform to a certain body type, typically one that is extremely thin. The singular size offered prefers small bodies to those that are larger in accordance with the thin ideal. Many people struggle with body image as a result of this homogeneity. Some even resort to not eating or over-exercising to abide by a company’s impossibly uniform standard.
Brandy Melville, a popular European-established clothing brand, only sells clothes in one size that falls between American numerical sizes 00 and 4. Many find the clothing brand very stylish and modern which has contributed to its notoriety. Girls want to wear clothing from this store to fit with the brand’s coercive reputation of favoring “skinny, pretty and cool girls.” Similarly, the brand hires its employees with a similar criteria. Brandy Melville typically only hires women that are skinny and white, if they aren’t racially white, they need to have “white features.” This problem is made more serious because many young girls aspire to this aesthetic.
Additionally, Kimis, a well-known Korean online clothing store, also offers only one size of clothing in its shirts, sweatshirts, jeans, pants, and other apparel. In Korea, it’s considerably more normal to have one size clothing because of how ingrained the unhealthy propagation of thinness is for its citizens, women especially. As a result, its limited sizing is all the more concerning.
YouTubers like Cora Josephine describe feeling humiliated for not being able to fit into Brandy Melville’s. Like Cora Josephine, high school student Ashley Kim thinks that one- size clothing can create the belief that one size is “normal,” whereas others are not. This causes other people to try to fit into the size that has been normalized.
“It can make buyers feel body shamed if the one size clothes don’t fit their bodies well,” Kim said. “Brands that only sell one size clothings should provide enough sizes for people so they have options to choose clothes that suit them better.”
To prevent this from happening, clothing brands should not put limits onto clothing sizes to help keep people comfortable in the clothing they wear. You should not have to change anything about yourself in order to fit into certain clothing. Everyone deserves to feel content in the clothes that they wear without believing they need to lose weight or conform to the thin ideal.
