I am sure that many of us are familiar with the brand Brandy Melville and if you aren't they are a clothing brand that notoriously only makes their clothing in one size, promoting a one size fits small policy. The brand's limited sizing range has caused controversy among many over the last couple years to say the least, but people still buy their cloths, including me.
I do not support the one size fits small policy at all and I feel guilty when I shop there but the cloths are simply just so cute. However, that is a discussion for another day.
While Brandy has been trendy and 'in' for quiet some time amongst pre-teens and teens, it's popularity is rising up again on a popular selling app called Depop. Now usually on Depop people sell thrifted items or just things that they don't want to keep anymore to make some extra cash. So usually the stuff is below the retail price, but with Brandy that is often not the case.
Recently I have been browsing Depop and noticing that people are selling Brandy items for way over retail and marketing them as 'rare'.
What does rare mean though in this sense? Because occasionally Brandy will put out items again even if it has been awhile, so it may not be the case where you won't ever have the chance to get it again in store.
Several items that I have found that can go for well over $200 are a white shirt with a unicorn on it, a sweatshirt that says 'Bay Area', and a one shoulder pink cheetah print top. All of these items are kind of basic and run around $20 normally but still they are extremely sought after.
Some items don't go for as much as those but still go well over retail, even if they are in the shop sometimes!
There are even Instagram accounts dedicated to posting when the website restocks so that people can snatch up the 'rare' items.
In particular the China Brandy Melville website seems to have lots of 'rare' items so now it is popular for people to buy things from the China website through someone who lives there and can ship it to the U.S. And with COVID-19 the international shipping is even more expensive, sometimes I have seen it at over $70 and then on top of that is the fee for the person shipping it from China.
People are willing to spend a lot of money on these items and it is a cult of sorts as some people on Twitter and Youtube have pointed out. However, I will admit that I myself have gotten sucked into this world. I find myself needing to get the 'rarest' items and constantly checking the site and other selling Websites for cloths that I like. I mean I have always enjoyed Brandy Melvilles cloths but now with this community of sorts fueling my bad spending habits, I have found myself being one of those people who buys a tank top for double the retail price.
However, I do have mixed feelings about people going on the site and buying multiples of one item just to re-sell it on selling websites. It makes it hard for other people who genuinely just want the item to get it at retail price on the site, but on the other hand for people who missed the launch of the product on the site is nice that they can get the product even if they do have to pay more for it.
The Depop reselling world of Brandy Melville is fascinating in how ridiculous the prices are but also how easy it is yourself to be one of the people bidding $50 for a $20 shirt. The bidding in fact is part of what makes it so addictive, as people will bid in the comments or directly to the seller and if it is a 'very rare' item the price can sky rocket very quickly. But people want the items so bad they watch the bids constantly and may even keep bidding until they win. This is different than just simply putting the price at say $50, because if that was all the seller as expecting to get, if several people want it, the bid could go up significantly to somewhere around $70.
The idea behind all of this is not a new idea though as scarcity with products and the reselling of items is a fairly old practice, however what does make this new is that many of the people involved in the Brandy Depop selling are often pretty young, like 13 years old as Brandy markets heavily towards that demographic. I know this because they have their Instagrams linked in their Depop bios and they have their age often.
So overall the secret life of the Brandy Depop reselling is a complex one that is easy to get addicted to, whether you support it or not. People are starting to catch on to it now though, as apparently on Tik Tok and Twitter people have been ranting about this, even making it a meme to lowball and offer for a 'rare' item to see the sellers response.
