My Brandy Melville Collection

Hi everyone. Today I have a very special post, as I'm finally sharing my Brandy Melville collection with you all. I first found the store in Soho around a year ago and I've been addicted ever since. It's my very favorite store. However I have had a good number of disappointing moments with it, and I feel the prices on some items have gotten to be overpriced. Despite all this, it's still a great value and the style is fantastic. It's like an amazing hybrid of all my favorite stores (Urban Outfitters, Free People, Forever 21, Tobi.com, ShopNastyGal) and way cheaper then some of them (ahem ahem Free People).

All my Brandy Melville jewelry (displayed below) was priced from $5-$8.

 If you can believe it, the cross looks even worse now. It's such a cheap piece of jewelry. I was ecstatic when I first found it in the store for only $6, but this picture was taken after 2 weeks since my buying it and I had worn it maybe two or three times. The metal or whatever material they put to coat it is so cheap. It's a completely different color now, it's rusted and the coloring has come off. Also, that bracelet is so cheap, there are 5 gold skulls on it which I thought was very cool, but all the skulls slide to the underside of your bracelet no matter what. So they're never visible when you have the bracelet on it just looks like a plain black band.

 I had to deliberately position these skulls this way so you could see what they were supposed to look like.

 My summer goods: shorts, tops, 1 skirt, 1 dress (I know, I need more!)

My winter goods: sweaters galore!

Here I'll list a few of the disappointing mishaps I've had with Brandy Melville:

1) Their quality of clothing. Yes, it's extremely soft (I mean seriously, soft. When my hands touched the cloth for the first time I gasped. But what that means is extremely delicate handling. These clothes are a pain in the butt to wash. The customer service rep told me "the best way to wash the clothing would be in the washer with like colors, settings set to delicate and cold water and dry in low heat setting.  :)" 

However, despite following these instructions extremely carefully, I have still found some of the tanks have gotten stretched in the straps and just kind of become longer and more shapeless looking. The worst thing that happened was the experience I had with my Brandy Melville Jeannie Vest, which was my holy grail, absolute love, denim vest that I considered both a find and a steal. I got it in November for around $42 (now they've hiked the price up to $65). I put it in the wash (and part of me was hesitating when I did this too because I so loved it and couldn't help wondering if something would go wrong) and when I came downstairs to check on it (and the other clothes I put in- I only wash my Brandy clothes with other Brandy clothes) I found it was all ripped up. There were so many new rips in it and holes and I could not believe what I was seeing. It was like a key was in the wash and just kept ripping through my vest. However, every other piece of clothing was entirely intact, and I searched the machine frantically for anything I might have left in my pockets- there was nothing.

My vest after the wash

I was so incredibly upset by what happened to my vest, and I felt literally cheated out of my money. My favorite piece of clothing ever had just been ruined, and by no fault of my own. I was so upset I contacted the company and sent them a respectful email, asking them how the situation could have happened and expressing to them that I felt I deserved compensation or to have my vest replaced. I included the photograph above ^. The company never responded to my message.

2) Brandy Melville is not upfront- After the debacle with my vest, someone close to me wanted to cheer me up and surprised me by sending me a new vest in the mail. They had ordered it off the website. I was very surprised when I opened the vest, and was extremely overwhelmed with my friend's generosity. However, I was more surprised when I saw the size on the vest said large. I checked the order form and yup, it said large as well. I called him up to thank him but then also told him it was in the wrong size and how could he order large? But I also said it was just as well because I could never have accepted such a pricey and generous gift. However he was very upset and told me that on the site when he went to buy the vest, there was absolutely no sizing options available to him. There was no size drop down menu to click or anything. I told him this couldn't be true, as I had just been looking at the vest, wondering if I should replace it myself, a week or two earlier. I checked and he was right! There were no longer any sizing options available, whereas before indeed there was a standard Small, Medium, Large. However, despite there no longer being any sizes available to pick from, you could still add to your cart. You simply checked your quantity and could click add to cart. My friend told me that since I had informed him it was mostly a one-size fits all store that he figured it was a one-size vest. However, that was never the case for this piece of clothing, because even back in November there were sizes, and I bought a Small. And this time around, a week or two earlier I had checked the site out and there were sizes as well. I couldn't understand what had happened. I checked back days later and there was still no sizing option.  Finally, week or two later and the sizes were up again. I came to realize that Brandy took the sizing off because they only had one size left and probably a low inventory- so everyone who clicked Add to Cart assuming it was one-size fits all, got a Large. 

I hate to speculate, but since no customer service representative responded to my message in any manner, I am forced to come to my own logical conclusion. I succeeded in getting a free shipping tag for the vest (which expired after 7 days so obviously it's not exactly like the company was doing everything possible to guarantee I get my friend's money back or return the item free of cost). I messaged back and forth with a customer service rep, quite clearly explaining the situation. This is what she said to me:

Hello Katherine,

We apologize for the trouble. Go ahead and send us back the vest and include a note stating that we sent you the correct size. We are going to make an exception this time and accept your return, but for future orders please be aware of sizing options if they are available and make sure you select the correct one. We will send you a call tag right now, you will have 7 days to return the item back to us.

Have a beautiful day!

-Brandy 

I was furious to see the words "we are going to make an exception this time... but for future orders please be aware of sizing options if they are available and make sure you select the correct one." Um... are you kidding me? There was no sizing option, and there SHOULD HAVE BEEN. I really hated that the whole predicament got turned around on me by the rep.

3) Prices have risen- some of the sweaters have gotten pretty pricey nowadays, although I am willing to pay $40-50 for a great looking thick sweater. But still, certain items have just sky rocketed that I would've felt was a steal before.

Pictures:

That basically sums up my list of complaints and dislikes. I end this blog post with my Brandy Melville video (which perhaps brought some of you to look at this post)! In it is a live video of me showing every single one of my Brandy pieces and linking prices and names if you happen to see anything you like. Please enjoy!