Customers asking in Korean get 'English, please' in reply

Brand frequently embroiled in racism and sexual harassment controversies

Experts warn of 'side effects such as instilling distorted values'

Brandy Melville's first store in Korea is drawing unfavorable looks from consumers. The brand, already under fire over allegations of racial discrimination, is insisting on 'English-only service' at its Korean store as well.

According to industry sources on the 8th, at Brandy Melville's first Korean store in Seongsu-dong, Seoul, every employee serves customers in English. Ask a question in Korean and the answer that comes back is 'English, please.' Staff were also recruited through an English-language post on the brand's US Instagram account. This is understood to have targeted 'foreigners who can speak English.'

The country options on Brandy Melville's website include English-speaking countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia, as well as Europe and Japan. But even selecting Japan displays the site in English, not Japanese.

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Brandy Melville was founded in the early 1980s by Italian-born Silvio Marsan together with his son Stephan. From the moment it opened, it has stirred up a range of issues, including selling only small sizes, racial discrimination, sexual harassment and design theft. With a company that caused so many problems in the United States now entering Korea and shunning the Korean language, resentment is building, centered on online communities.

On top of that, Brandy Melville sells clothing in a single size: S (small). Since the brand makes clothes targeting only thin people, wearing Brandy Melville is also a way of signaling 'I am thin.' In the United States, one side effect was the emergence of teenage girls who developed anorexia while attempting the 'Brandy Melville challenge' (losing weight to fit into the tiny sizes).

Racism controversies have also been unrelenting. According to a documentary by the US network HBO, executives demanded that female employees in their teens and 20s send not only full-body photos but photos of their feet and chests. Employees who were not slim were told they were being fired because they did not fit the brand's aesthetic. Employees of color were mainly assigned to departments without customer contact (such as stockroom work).

Netizen A said, "This is a malicious company whose moral failings are so serious that a documentary was made overseas to expose them, so its entry into Korea is worrying," adding, "I'm concerned that young girls will be harmed by Brandy Melville."

Netizen B criticized, "It's astonishing that a company doing business in Korea excludes Koreans and hires international students or working-holiday visitors from English-speaking countries," adding, "They've entered Korea with zero understanding of Korean sensibilities or language."

Experts warn that Brandy Melville's entry into Korea could instill distorted values in Korean women in their teens and 20s. They point out that the perception that, even in Korea, only those who speak good English and are thin can wear the brand's clothes could stoke these young women's desire to show off and their vanity.

Attorney Shin Dong-woo of DAEON Law Firm voiced concern: "In the United States, multiple sanctions and lawsuits concerning Brandy Melville are under way, but under current Korean law there is no suitable means of sanctioning this. Brandy Melville's policies could instill distorted values in consumers in their teens and 20s and cause a variety of side effects, so a brake is needed."

While the vast majority of brands at home and abroad today pursue diversity in race, body type, gender and age, Brandy Melville clings to a 'young, thin, white' supremacism. Moreover, its haughty and brazen approach of shunning 'Korean' in Korea may inspire envy in some, but it is provoking resentment in most. Criticism keeps mounting that Brandy Melville, which is expanding into Asian countries including Korea, Japan, China and Singapore, needs to 'understand local sensibilities.'

Newsway Reporter Yang Mi-jeong