Perhaps Groucho Marx had the strength to say “I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member,” but when it comes to teenage girls, wanting to be part of the in-crowd and being accepted are a rite of passage everyone suffers or sails through. Thereupon beckons the promise of wearing the perfect lip gloss or the coveted jeans brand that will catapult you to the top of the pecking order, or at the very least, an invite to that Saturday night party.
Brandy Melville, an Italian-founded brand that embodies California cool, has courted controversy over the years due to its petite sizing, which they refer to as “one size”, which in reality can fit up to a size 12 for looser, slouchier clothes, but where the slimmer clothes are optimized for sizes 0-4. Arguments abound on both sides with petite patrons arguing that they deserve a clothing line that caters to petite frames, much like those who wear larger sizes have plus-size stores like Torrid. Meanwhile, others accuse the brand of not being size-inclusive and preying on women’s insecurities around the need to be thin to fit into these clothes. It’s a complex question as retailers like Old Navy experimented with a broader range of sizes a few years ago, only to have supply chain and inventory issues once the product hit the actual store, with too many petite and plus sizes and not enough mid-range sizes. Some say that the intent to be more inclusive was on target, but there was not enough publicity to make new target audiences aware of the larger offerings. Either way, it came down to profitability and Old Navy decided to rein in the range of sizes in-store, while keeping them available online.
In the meantime, though, Brandy Melville is sticking to its guns, and it appears that there are enough customers within its currently offered size range to fuel its foot traffic (below).
The San Francisco and Nashville locations have been remarkably consistent, showing positive year-over-year growth throughout the year. Of the 18 stores tracked in Placer, remarkably 17 of them are showing recent year-over-year growth comparing the last week of March 2024 to the prior year.
Some fairly interesting insights arise when we look at a cross-section of the Brandy Melville visitor across three locations: San Francicso, Malibu, and Nashville. One thing they have in common? Visits from Ultra Wealthy Families (using Spatial.ai PersonaLive visitor segments). San Francisco and Malibu also have a large amount of Educated Urbanites. Surprisingly, 12% of visits in Nashville come from Sunset Boomers, which would seem to belie the largely teenage/young adult audience that is their target, unless there are multigenerational cohorts shopping together.
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