By Kyra-lin Hom

If you're not a female teen bopper (or closely tied to the spending habits of one), you've probably never heard of Brandy Melville. It's an Italian clothing and accessory brand that hopped the Atlantic in 2009. It has since skyrocketed to become one of the top teen clothing brands in the U.S. largely due to a brilliantly orchestrated marketing scheme. And whether you love it or hate it, you have to agree it has worked.

At its simplest, that scheme is one of exclusivity. Brandy Melville clothing is very affordable, but it only comes in one size. The labels read “one-size-fits-most,” and their website provides measurements for the clothing itself rather than offering multiple size options. And those measurements are tiny – very rarely anything above a modern size 2.

Their ad campaigns feature waif-like Caucasian teen girls with long blond hair and coquettish, girl-next-door charm. It's a carefully crafted brand image. Wear Brandy Melville and there's no question of how thin you are. Anyone who didn't think this was going to take high schools by storm doesn't know teen girls.

Having such a cliquish aura has of course sparked a backlash of controversy as well. Many people are now attacking the brand for perpetuating body issues in a country where approximately half of teen girls are already finding unhealthy ways to manage their weight. The arguments fall into two major categories. The simplest involves the “one-size-fits-most” labels. Brand opposers want to know 'most of whom?' because it certainly isn't most Americans.

I'll be the first to say that people (not just women) come in all shapes and sizes. Despite being pretty thin myself, a life of weight-lifting and high-impact athletics has given me thick arms and a proportionally 'healthy' lower half that takes me right out of Brandy Melville territory. Saying that there's an ideal body type is completely ridiculous and uninformed. So understand where I'm coming from when I point out that Brandy Melville is an Italian and not an American brand. Italian women have some of the lowest BMI's in Europe, which as a whole is thinner than the U.S. by at least 10 pounds per person. So most of whom? Probably most Italians. Should we feel bad about that? Meh?

(And now I have Sir Mix-A-Lot's Baby Got Back stuck in my head...)

That issue, however, is superficial. More importantly is why we're so affected, validated and offended by a clothing brand. I couldn't create a more artificial thin-fat scale if I tried. We live in a capitalist society where companies have more freedom than governments when it comes to what they can push on the masses. That's not a new thing. If Brandy Melville is weightist then Gucci and Louis Vuitton are classist. So why are we up in arms about to whom and how this company is allowed to market?

This is a big splash because weight has become entangled with our personal identities and self-worth. We don't equate petite-only stores like Brandy Melville with plus-size-only stores like Torrid because we don't feel threatened by being too small. We've connected a completely arbitrary standard of 'thin' with 'good.' That's not the fault of the clothing.

Brandy Melville may be a members-only specialty brand, but that is its prerogative. It may not be right, but it does have the right. Our response to this ploy says far more about how we see ourselves than it does the company.