#but i was genuinely gobsmacked to see Georgia's story earlier

[ingravinoveritas]

(CW: Sexual assault, eating disorders, fatphobia, racism.) So, for those who might not have seen, Georgia posted this Insta story earlier today:

I wanted to take a moment to talk about this because the brand that she tagged in the story is Brandy Melville.

For anyone who may be unfamiliar, Brandy Melville is a clothing store geared primarily toward teenage girls. Just earlier this year, a documentary was released on HBO highlighting BM's extremely questionable business practices, from racism (relegating black employees to working in the stockroom or behind the tills) to ageism to fatphobic sizing (almost nothing beyond a size Small) that has led to a preponderance of eating disorders among employees and customers alike. The company also solicited photos from minors--teenage girls who tagged the brand on Instagram in the hope of being featured and sent free merchandise.

In addition, Brandy Melville founder Stephen Marsan is said to have shared despicably sexist, homophobic, and antisemitic memes and images in group texts between members of BM's leadership team; and a former staff member spoke in the documentary about another staff member who was reportedly sexually assaulted in a Brandy Melville-owned apartment in NYC. And none of this is even touching the problem of Brandy Melville as a "fast fashion" brand that has used the country of Ghana as a dumping ground for hundreds of pounds of waste and harmed its people and their environment as a result.

The reason I mention this is that while Georgia is certainly free to wear whatever she wants and may not have known any of the above, it takes approximately five seconds to find this information by searching on Google. Five seconds of looking is all it would've taken to think twice about endorsing this company, but it seems that Georgia did not even think or care to do that.

And while unwittingly shilling for a company like this is ill-conceived on its own, it somehow seems far more deliberate when we see Georgia's hashtags beneath the caption: #dreambig #aslongasthedreamonlycomesinonesize. Knowing that Brandy Melville is notorious for exclusionary sizing, it's difficult not to see that tag as anything other than incredibly tactless.

I'm just not sure what Georgia was thinking, but given the number of followers she has and the reach her content sometimes attains, it seems downright irresponsible of her to promote this brand. Because it's hard to "dream big" when everything about Brandy Melville seems like nothing but a nightmare...