by Paris – It might be unusual for Australian director Eva Orner, who took home an Oscar for her US interrogation practices during the Afghanistan war, to turn her lens to the fashion industry.
In the new documentary “Brandy Hellville & the Cult of Fast Fashion,” Orner investigates the toxic management culture of popular teen and tween brand Brandy Melville and looks at the fast fashion supply chain and the waste it creates.
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Orner, a self-professed fashion lover, had long sought a way to examine the clothing industry in documentary form.
Working with producers Jonathan and Simon Chinn of “Searching for Sugarman” fame, they uncovered the story of Brandy Melville and its workplace culture following an exposé with Business Insider’s Kate Taylor, which shed light on a series of practices discriminatory recruitment and prey management.
In the film, the company’s toxic culture goes beyond its treatment of employees and extends to the larger problem of disposable clothing.
The Italian brand first launched in the 1980s but took off when it opened in Los Angeles in 2009. It was built on a series of platforms – first Tumblr, then Instagram, and now TikTok – and captured the zeitgeist of selfie culture. -loving that came up on social media.
Orner sees the role of social media as a big factor not only in the success of the Brandy Melville brand, but the disposal of clothing when it was already seen as an OOTD in someone’s life.
“This story is very much rooted in social media. But the joke is on the customer, they do video advertising for brands. And the companies are laughing all the way to the bank. Social media is very powerful and interesting to a point, but I think it’s also very harmful,” she told WWD.
The documentary examines claims of how top executives would ask young employees to reveal photos to be sent to them every day, among other predatory behaviour. Employees were instructed to fire workers who were overweight or colored; Black employees were allegedly relegated to the stockroom. It is alleged that the chief executive officer Stephan Marsan would hang out in the shops to recruit girls and teenagers he wanted and identify their photo.
She also points out that the majority of workers in the fashion industry are women, but they do not benefit from the financial benefits of big business.
“The fashion industry is dominated by women,” Orner said. “And it’s exploited from the people who work in the fields growing cotton, to the women who are mainly workers, to the people who work on the shop floor, to the customers, and the models, and everyone on the way. And there’s just this series of women that are being exploited, often not always, but more often by white men who own the companies that are super rich,” she said.
She also followed the brand’s own supply chain, made in sweatshops in Italy and China, and goes to Ghana’s Kantamanto Market and the nearby beaches where piles of clothes are washed up, creating mountains of waste.
While filming, one of the biggest moments happened when Orner and her crew came across the beaches a mile away from the Kantamanto Market. It was night, and by the light of the moon they could still see the mountains of cloth.
“When we went there, you know, me and my team, we shot in war zones, and we did a lot of tough stories and saw a lot of horrible parts of humanity. We are on that beach in Ghana, and it was terrible. There really are no words. When I think about it, I still get chills, it was such a horror to see our waste polluting their country.
“Everyone sees the images of the beaches and they get excited. That’s what I really wanted to capture because it’s one of the lasting images of the film that’s kind of burned into your brain,” she said of the impact.
In the film, Orner talks to former fashion designer Liz Ricketts, who now runs The Or Foundation in Ghana. The group proposes an expanded responsibility that is globally accountable to producers, as well as new frameworks for the fashion industry to take care of its waste.
Orner hopes that the audience understands that the good intentions of donated clothes are often still dumped in these countries, and she reiterates that the waste stream follows old colonial lines. “Our father is now sending them all our rubbish, so that they are drowning in our old clothes,” she said.
The second-hand market then started as a way to reuse clothes, but now much of the clothes are fast fashion low quality that cannot be reused, and most are fossil fuel synthetics such as polyester, which do not biodegrade and It breaks down into polluted microfiber.
The trailer went viral on TikTok before the film was released on the streamer Max, with around 2.8 million views. Orner hopes the film will reach the brand’s target audience, as well as encourage other former employees to share their stories.
Orner admits that the first revelation didn’t hit the bottom line; Analysts estimate that Brandy Melville will surpass $332 million in revenue in 2023, and has continued its global expansion with overseas positions in countries including Australia and China. Also ultra-fast fashion companies with cheaper goods like Shein have entered.
Orner hopes the film will inspire change. “I think we are at a tipping point. A lot of young girls, like all the young women in the film – who are total heroes of mine for speaking out and being whistleblowers and being so brave – none of them are buying fast fashion anymore,” she said.
Orner noted that the last line of the film “We need to buy less” is writ large on the screen, and says that consumers have the power.
“You will destroy these companies if the buying goes down 20 or 30 percent. It will have a huge impact,” she said. “People think they are powerless but they are not.”
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