The “one-size-fits-most” brand pulled a core service from its stores, teens are revolting on TikTok, and the smart money says it still wins.
Brandy Melville has quietly closed the fitting rooms across its 55-plus U.S. stores, reportedly citing theft and a viral gum-on-the-curtains problem. Shoppers are furious. Yet a retail consultant says the move could lift sales, because the brand’s cult status keeps even annoyed teens lining up to buy anyway.
Picture this: you walk into the bustling SoHo store, arms full of tiny cotton tank tops, head for the back, and get redirected by a security guard. A baby-pink heart sign tells you the fitting rooms are closed. Your options? Buy blind, or leave. For a store that already sells clothes in basically one size and calls it “one size fits most,” that is a bold thing to ask of a customer.
What Happened
Brandy Melville closed the fitting rooms in its U.S. stores, and it did so without a public word. The privately held retailer has not acknowledged the policy. The official reason could not be determined.
The reaction was instant. Dozens of young shoppers took to TikTok to complain. One filmed herself pulling skirts on over her pants right on the store floor. Another said she would just show up in a bathing suit and try things on that way.
The Backstory
Inside some stores, employees offered an unofficial explanation: a rise in theft, plus a now-infamous TikTok trend where customers stuck chewing gum on the wall to hold the fitting rooms’ flimsy curtains shut for extra privacy. One staff plea last year, a video of an employee peeling gum off with tissues, racked up more than 700,000 views.
This is not Brandy’s first controversy, and that matters. The brand only makes clothing in small or extra-small while marketing it as “one size fits most.” Its models are almost exclusively thin, and usually white and blonde. It has been hit with discrimination accusations in lawsuits and in a 2024 HBO documentary. Through all of it, the brand has stayed silent and stayed popular.
The Core Development
Here is the twist that should interest any operator. Retail consultant Liza Amlani of Retail Strategy Group thinks closing the fitting rooms might actually grow sales.
The logic is almost ruthless. Brandy recently loosened its in-store return policy, giving customers more days to bring items back, but it still only offers store credit or an exchange, never a cash refund. Combine that with no fitting rooms, and you get a loop. Buy blind, discover it does not fit, come back to return it, and now you are standing inside the store again, surrounded by constantly refreshed styles you did not plan to buy. As Amlani put it, even while they complain, they are still shopping.
The Business Model Angle
This is friction as a feature, and it only works from a position of power.
Most retailers spend their lives removing friction. Free returns, easy refunds, generous fitting rooms, anything to lower the barrier to a yes. Brandy is doing the opposite, and the only reason it can is demand that barely flinches. When customers describe your store as “the high-school mean girl” and keep coming back because the clothes are “pretty cool,” you have pricing power most brands would kill for. Brandy is one of the few chains offering on-trend, well-made cotton basics at a low price, so the substitutes are weaker than the eye-rolling suggests.
The lesson for founders: real brand loyalty is the right to offload your costs onto the customer. Theft, returns, and gummy curtains are Brandy’s problems. By killing fitting rooms, the company hands the cost of “will this fit” back to the shopper, and the store-credit-only policy recycles every mistake into more browsing time. That is not a customer-service decision. It is a margin decision dressed as a maintenance one. The same captive demand shows up across fast fashion, which is exactly why Zara built a vertically integrated model to keep customers cycling through fresh inventory.
The Risk
The honest counterpoint: captivity is not loyalty, and Brandy is betting its customers can tell the difference and will not care.
Some already walked. One 16-year-old left a store empty-handed rather than buy clothes she could not try on, saying she did not want to spend money on things she might not like. A visiting mom shopping for her 12-year-old wanted to check the fit before buying and called the change unfair. Every one of those moments is a sale Brandy chose to make harder. Pile that on top of a brand already absorbing discrimination accusations and an HBO documentary, and the friction stops reading as confidence and starts reading as contempt. Fast fashion has no shortage of cheap, trendy alternatives one TikTok away. Push captive customers far enough and “always a line out front” can become an empty floor faster than any quarterly report can warn you.
Quick Questions
Why did Brandy Melville close its fitting rooms?
The company never said publicly. Employees at some stores pointed to rising theft and a TikTok trend of shoppers using gum to hold the curtains shut. Officially, the reason is unconfirmed.
Can you still try on clothes at Brandy Melville?
Not in the store. The fitting rooms are closed, so you either judge the fit by eye or buy it and check at home.
What is Brandy Melville’s return policy now?
It recently gave customers more days to return in-store purchases, but returns get store credit or an exchange, not a cash refund.
Is “one size fits most” really one size?
Effectively yes. Brandy makes clothing only in small or extra-small and markets it as “one size fits most,” which is part of why the no-fitting-room move stings.
The Business Model Analyst Take
Brandy Melville just ran a live experiment most brands could never survive: remove a basic service, say nothing, and see if anyone leaves. Its bet is that cult demand plus a store-credit-only policy turns even your annoyed customers into a recurring foot-traffic engine. For founders, the takeaway is sharp. Friction is only a strategy when your customers have nowhere better to go, and the day that stops being true, every cost you offloaded onto them becomes a reason to walk. Brand power lets you get away with this. It does not let you get away with it forever.
