Brandy Melville closes changing rooms nationwide, sparking shopper backlash

Brandy Melville has closed changing rooms in stores across the United States, a move that immediately drew backlash from shoppers who say the one-size retailer is making it harder to buy clothes that already fit narrowly by design. Employees in New York City, Boston and Austin said they were told this week to permanently shut the fitting rooms.

The decision lands especially hard with the brand’s core customer base, young women who have long relied on trying items on before buying. On TikTok, some customers said the move was “devastating news,” while others complained that fitting rooms mattered because the company sells one size per style, leaving little room for guesswork on fit. For a chain built on affordable cotton basics, the shutdown turns the burden of sizing even more squarely onto shoppers.

Brandy Melville has not issued an official statement on the changes. Some employees said the company blamed vandalism, and an Austin worker said fitting-room curtains and walls had repeatedly been damaged by chewing gum, a problem that staff linked to viral TikTok trends. Another employee in Greenwich Village said workers were told to make the change with little explanation.

The backlash also revives a long-running argument over the brand itself. Founded in 1980, Brandy Melville has drawn both devotion and criticism for its single-size model, which has been attacked for favoring smaller body types and for reinforcing unhealthy body image ideals. A 2024 HBO documentary, Brandy Hellville & The Cult of Fast Fashion, accused the retailer of promoting eating disorders and sexualising its young female employees.

The fitting-room closures now add another layer to that criticism. In practice, the policy pushes more risk and inconvenience onto shoppers who cannot test how a garment will fit before buying it, while the company offers no public explanation for why that tradeoff was necessary.