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CASE STUDY ON BRANDY MELVILLE-
CASE STUDY ON BRANDY MELVILLE-
ANAYLSIS USING MONTE CARLO SIMULATIONS
ANAYLSIS USING MONTE CARLO SIMULATIONS
-Statistics Project by Gauri Sharan
25th May 2022
About Brandy Melville
About Brandy Melville
Brandy Melville is an European fashion brand targeted towards young women. According to Wikipedia, the company was established in Italy by Silvio Marsan but attracted most of its popularity in California. The business grew popular among young girls, in part due to their Malibu teen aesthetic. Their Instagram page currently has over 3.4 million followers. Brandy Melville has faced considerable controversy for its "one-size-fits-most" policy as customers began to express distaste for their non-inclusive clothing items. Their clothes are tailored to a 25-inch waist and a 32-inch bust, measurements that are not widely representative of the vast majority of female consumers.
In order to test their one-size-fits-all theory, I formulated a python-coded Monte-Carlo simulation consisting of data of 500 people containing their heights, weights and their BMI indexes. The data is randomly generated and balanced, hence there are minimal chances of producing biases. The sources are mentioned above in this website.
In order to properly fit in Brandy Melville clothing, your BMI index number should range between 0 and 1.5, so a red line is drawn where number = 1.0 to denote our target and to see how many people have BMI index in that range. The green line in the graph shows the final result value of the Monte-Carlo simulation, showing the average BMI of women calculated in a randomised sample of 100 women taken from the dataset at each instance. The calculated final value denoted by the green line is also written at the top of each graph.
(please press the play button at the left side of the code for generating the graphs)
Necessary data-
Gender : Male / Female
Height : Number (cm)
Weight : Number (Kg)
: Numbers denoting indexes-
0 - BMI < 17 - Extremely Underweight
1 - BMI 17 to 18.5 - Underweight
2 - BMI 18.5 to 25 - Normal
3 - BMI 25 to 30 - Overweight
4 - BMI 30 to 35 - Obesity
5 - BMI > 35 - Extreme Obesity
Observations
Observations
As one can see, the ideal BMI to fit in Brandy-Melville clothing is way too deviated from the average BMI of 100 random women collected from the dataset. Basically, one needs to have their BMI index in the outliers range to fit in their clothing. The observations below follow the same trend.
Code and Computation
Code and Computation
import pandas as pd
import random
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
df=pd.read_csv("https://raw.githubusercontent.com/GAURISHARAN567/w0act3/main/500_Person_Gender_Height_Weight_Index%5B1%5D.csv")
df.query('Gender == "Female"', inplace=True)
in_list = df['Index'].tolist()
def index_gen():
return random.choice(in_list)
list1 = []
def monte_carlo(n):
results = 0
for i in range(n):
size_result = index_gen()
results = results + size_result
prob_value = results/(i+1)
list1.append(prob_value)
plt.axhline(y = 1.0, color = 'r', linestyle = '-')
plt.xlabel("Iterations")
plt.ylabel("Size")
plt.plot(list1)
return results/n
answer = monte_carlo(100)
print("Final value :",answer)
plt.axhline(y = answer, color = 'g', linestyle = '-')
average index = sum of all indexes in randomised trial (a) / number of samples taken (b)
a and b are incremented by 1 at each instance in the graph along the 'iterations' axis.
manual example-
taking 10 random samples-
Gender,Height,Weight,Index
Female,185,110,4
Female,195,104,3
Female,169,103,4
Female,159,80,4
Female,192,101,3
Female,153,107,5
Female,157,110,5
Female,172,67,2
Female,151,64,3
Female,195,65,1
average index = (4+3+4+4+3+5+5+2+3+1)/10 = 3.4
inputting this data to monte carlo simulation:
graph obtained:
Conclusion: The probabilities computed manually are similar to the value obtained using Monte Carlo simulation.
A Word.
A Word.
While this company hasn't arrived in India yet, this is a valuable discussion we can have with our peers. Interestingly enough, this research topic was suggested to me by my sister, Uma Sharan, a high-school student who has more information and influence from the west compared to my generation (Although I literally grew up with the internet, I find her to know more than I do when it comes to western pop culture and news. For reference, she was born in 2006 and I was born in 2002).
From the simulations obtained, two conclusions can be drawn easily:
It is nearly impossible to fit in Brandy Melville clothes properly without any discomfort for an average woman.
Their is a steady growth in obesity in the world population, averages range from index 3.5 to 4, which are labelled as "overweight" and "obese"; which is a topic for another research study.
Another intriguing factor in what the brand does to young minds is that when I was calculating the near-average BMI index needed to fit in their clothes, I was surprised to find this information in a forum made for people struggling with eating disorders and body dysmorphia (linked) on the web.
The company's reputation is already in shambles as:
Their fast fashion practices are being questioned. According to Wikipedia, it is a highly profitable and exploitative business model based on replicating catwalk trends and high-fashion designs, mass-producing them at low cost. Oftentimes, this entails exploiting workers in inhumane conditions.
The company and their CEO have been accused of racism and selective treatment of girls as young as 14 years of age. Reportedly, they prefer 'thin, rich, white girls' over anyone who doesn't fit this criteria. The references for this statement are given in the end of this article and are fairly unpleasant to read.
None of this data would have mattered if 1) the girls consuming this fashion brand considered it as a "status symbol" and 2) if it wasn't this popular among so many young teenage girls.
Having a brand that caters to very petite and small girls is not inherently a bad idea since there are such women around us, but the real problem is the exclusion of other sizes altogether, enforcing the "belief" that "skinny is beautiful".
Recently the brand had made generous efforts to introduce bigger sizes, but went ahead to label them as "oversized", enforcing another belief that it is normal to be extremely skinny, which I just disproved using the data above.
Some even accuse the brand to be a cult, given their fixed mentalities.
As an Indian, I am very surprised to see that their clothes are not even remotely interesting (like the same crop top in just a few colours). In contrast, a lot more variety, diversity and art can be found in many Indian brands. So I personally do not understand the hype; it only exists because a narrative is been enforced on little children.
My fellow Indians, let's not encourage such brands in our nation, and celebrate the myriad colourful culture and people that we are :)
References
References
https://www.kaggle.com/yersever/500-person-gender-height-weight-bodymassindex
https://www.utupub.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/147326/Mansikka_Emilia_opinnayte.pdf?sequence=1
https://meteamedia.org/21566/opinions/brandy-melvilles-one-size-fits-all-standard-is-outdated/
https://www.inputmag.com/style/brandy-melville-accused-of-racism-exploitation-female-supreme-brand
https://github.com/GAURISHARAN567/w0act3/blob/main/125967018.pdf
https://github.com/GAURISHARAN567/w0act3/blob/main/125958490.pdf
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