“One size fits all”
This phrasing originated in the fashion industry, but since has expanded to mean a variety of different things in different industries. While most brands seem to cater to a diverse set of body sizes, there are still a few which only sell one size of clothing.
What first comes to mind for me is the brand Brandy Melville. Brandy has been a very popular brand for my demographic for the past 5-10 years. Almost constantly the styles that Brandy puts out are all over social media, seen as a trendy style. As I’ve discussed in previous posts, when a style is trending on social media, it is very desirable, and many people want to buy it so that they can fit in with the trend. The unfortunate part of this is, even if people have a desire to purchase these clothes, girls may not even be able to purchase clothing from the company due to their one size fits all movement, which restricts a majority from purchasing their clothes.
By only making one size of clothing, brands advocate that this is the standard of beauty, and that if you don’t fit into this one size, then you don’t deserve to wear the clothing from this brand. When you don’t fit into what “all” people should be able to wear, your self-confidence is likely to decrease and you may feel like you need to change the way you look to be accepted by society, when in reality this is not the case.
The typical model of Brandy’s clothing is a skinny, white conventionally pretty woman. When you are buying their products, you are essentially buying into the image that they display.
In addition, the employees at Brandy stores are notoriously rude to those who do not fit into this general stereotype. This has been a joke on social media where people are made fun of by the employees when shopping, not being the typical polite that they would to other customers, and in general not being inclusive to all sizes and types of people.
Unfortunately, by buying Brandy Melville’s products (no matter how cute or trendy they are) is supporting their idea that one size fits all means that they “normal” body type is a size small. The media’s treatment of the brand further showcases the commonplace that the brand is exclusive to bigger body types.