What in the Ralph Lauren Cosplay Is Going On at the Brandy Melville Cafe
Was no one going to mention the Declaration of Independence hanging up in the bathroom?
On a recent Saturday morning, after sweating off a hangover to the Brat remix album in a SoulCycle class led by Sandy Liang’s favorite DJ1, I stopped for an oat milk latte at the Brandy Melville cafe. (I’ll take “Most Obnoxious Sentences” for $600, Alex.)
The West Village coffee shop — dubbed St. George, because who would take an eponymous “Brandy Melville Cafe” seriously, I suppose — is hard to miss. It’s two stories tall with big rustic pane windows lining the building, freestanding in a sea of tightly packed brownstones. Like in any other downtown cafe, white men with angular faces sit furrowing their brows and underlining who-knows-what in tattered copies of Penguin Random House Classics.
But something feels a little off when you step inside: there are American flags hanging on nearly every wall (and one French flag behind the cash register under a small crucifix, probably the same one your grandma has over every door in her house); there is an army of olive oil bottles2 surrounding you, both loose on random shelves and in boxes being used to prop up displays of branded hats and sweatshirts; and when you go to the bathroom, a shiny gold engraved copy of the Declaration of Independence hangs above the toilet.
St. George appears to be a poorly considered testament to Americana — or at the very least, its interior designer typed “demented Ralph Lauren” into ChatGPT for some inspiration.
There is abundant signage to inform you they only use oat milk, and the pastry case houses baby croissants and supremely skinny sandwiches. I can only assume the sandwiches are an homage to the infamous skinny door3 (or maybe they’re a suggestion of appropriate portion size for those wishing to fit through said door, see Brandy’s one size fits all clothing philosophy).
Upstairs, a Toyota-dealership-sized American flag looms over the room. Posters of Lynyrd Skynyrd and east coast university banners litter the walls. Acoustic guitars that have clearly never been played before hang on both floors to offer merely the suggestion of spirit or soul in the room.
In my defense, I didn’t known it was officially a Brandy Melville owned and operated cafe at the time of latte-purchase. However, the first time I stopped in, months prior, I distinctly thought to myself, “Holy shit, this place is like if Brandy Melville had a cafe.” I managed to protect my peace and let that thought go. But it was that Saturday morning when my thought was answered and my peace disturbed, suspicions proven correct with one glance at the signature Brandy Melville Silver Bucket.
These little buckets seem to spawn out of thin air at every Brandy Melville store, always overflowing with underwear or scrunchies. They’re not hiding the affiliation (I checked the merch tags and some say Brandy Melville), but they’re not really promoting it either.
I searched on TikTok (as one does these days) to see what the girls thought of it and if I was the last one to discover St. George was a Brandy Melville front4. The girls are flocking, and indeed I was the last person on earth to hear the news. Maybe they’re flocking to the beautiful windows, tiny baked goods, or the last $5 latte in Manhattan. (Somehow a flavored latte with plant-based milk at St. George is only $5, which in New York City can run you upward of $15, speaking from firsthand experience.) But most videos about the place have a title akin to “come with me to visit the Brandy Melville cafe” — the girls are here for the Brandy branding.
For an Italian company, Brandy Melville has long put all its eggs in the Americana basket (a basket they rummaged from a garage sale with a Ralph Lauren biography in it, we can assume). And why wouldn’t they want a piece of the RL American flag puzzle? Ralph Lauren has helped shape and define modern American style since Polo’s inception in the 1960s while somehow keeping his own finger on the pulse well into the 21st century — and became a billionaire while doing it.
Brandy Melville (cafe included) often feels to me like it’s trying to be the teenage girl’s Ralph Lauren. While Ralph Lauren sells a Gatsby-esque5 fantasy of the American lifestyle, Brandy Melville sells the fantasy of being Gatsby’s teenage daughter — none of the responsibilities but with access to the same family trust.
The Americana schtick feels particularly misplaced considering the company doesn’t have American roots. Although now a billionaire, Ralph Lauren is a Bronx-native born to immigrant parents, while Brandy Melville was founded by an Italian man obsessed with libertarianism6 who cashes in on the cosplay of a Malibu and Hamptons lifestyle.
Ralph Lauren released his American flag sweater in 1989, a knit so iconic it’s been displayed in the MET. Despite the blue-haired-liberal gay-club-bumping Brat summer everyone on the internet appeared to have, searches for American flag sweaters on the LTK shopping app spiked by 638%. Brandy Melville sells its version for $387.
In 2024, the American teenage girl wore her Brandy Melville flag sweater to the Fourth of July Southampton fireworks show with an Aritzia tennis skort and Sambas — and she’s been too busy listening to Espresso on repeat to learn which “Julia” Charli is singing about.
The original Ralph Lauren flag sweater was born the same year as Taylor Swift — coincidentally both enduring symbols of the American Dream and the crushing grip of capitalism that lingers behind it. Miss Americana herself is often papped in classic Lauren pieces, but you can find her in Brandy Melville too. She regularly utilizes a high-low rule in her outfits, pairing $50,000 watches with $50 sweaters to maintain a level of relatability in her style8. Kids, you can be just like billionaire Barbie if you buy your own sweater dupe! (Perhaps the made-overseas dupe of the flag sweater is actually the most American thing of all.)
Mormon trad wives are getting fluff pieces in the New York Times, Joe Rogan has the top podcast on Spotify, and raw milk is making its way into our store’s refrigerators. In the wake of a recent resurgence in American conservatism, perhaps it’s only fitting that a fast-fashion brand selling a stars and stripes coastal fantasy will become so ubiquitous you can’t even buy coffee outside of the right-wing panopticon.
After all this, dear reader, I’m back at St. George right now, sitting across from the giant flag and an acoustic guitar that looks fresh out of an Amazon box. By this time, the cafe has been decorated for the holidays with wreaths and twinkly lights. The barista complimented my hair. It started snowing a few minutes ago, and these big pane windows are perfect for flurry watching. Everyone looked up from their laptops for just a moment to catch a glimpse. Even inside a cafe as odd as this one, the people of New York are just the same.
When I take out my earbuds and pack up my things to leave, I realize the four other girls at my communal table are having a lively discussion about Brandy Melville’s odd displays of American nationalism and how unfortunately fitting it is that the sandwiches are so skinny. I join in, of course, to share that I am sitting next to them writing about just that, and it turns out the woman directly to my right is wearing the exact same sweater I am.
My boyfriend often reminds me (when I say I’d rather write at home for the third day in a row than face the outside world) that the story isn’t in our apartment. I tend to choose the comfort of my couch over the unsupported wooden stool of a coffee shop. But the writing is outside — perhaps in a coffee shop with so many American flags on the walls you’re weirded out enough to put down a couple thousand words about it, perhaps at a table of women who feel equally as weirded out by it too. So, I pen to you my final thoughts on the matter from behind enemy lines at the Brandy Melville cafe.
With a giant American flag eclipsing my vision and a case of olive oil breathing down my neck, I realize here that I had in fact been decked out in red, white, and blue on Thanksgiving — with, dare I say, a patriotic star in the mix!
I pair red and blue often, but what led me to add the white collar? An affinity for pilgrim dress, partially, but also maybe a sliver of subconscious desire to play out my own American holiday fantasy in speckled wool and collared cotton. This is not a fantasy I’ve ever had consciously, but it’s possible my enthusiasm for pumpkin pie drowned out the normal voice of reason.
That flouncy shirt is arguably the most tradwife-adjacent item in my wardrobe. While I like to think of it as clown chic, pairing it with red stars and navy blue could send a less circus-minded message. Even in my own closet, the American flag is somehow inescapable. I just want to drink an oat milk latte in peace.
Thank you for reading! Have you been to a St. George cafe? How skinny is too skinny for a coffee shop Caprese sandwich? Do you know which Etsy shop they got that Declaration of Independence from? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
He’s a really good SoulCycle instructor. And DJ.
ICYMI, Brandy Meliville sells olive oil. Take this with a grain of salt (or a hunk of baguette), but one Redditor calls it “the best olive oil I've ever had by miles.”
The skinny door meme has been somewhat debunked. The door belongs to a Brandy location in Paris and was apparently only partially open when customers have taken those viral photos and videos. It is allegedly fully open at least some of the time.
There are also two St. George locations in London, which, admittedly, seem to have less cursed vibes. The American flags are aptly replaced with the Union Jack.
The costume work Ralph Lauren did on the 1974 film adaptation of The Great Gatsby was a major moment in his career, and perhaps the main reason why the two are inextricable in my brain.
The Ayn Rand worship only scratches the surface of this guy — a 2024 documentary, Brandy Hellville & The Cult of Fast Fashion, dove into allegations of racism, minor misconduct, fatphobia, and much more under his leadership.
The American flag sweater is available online in all regions except Australia for some reason. Will do some on-the-ground research next time I’m in Sydney.
This was fascinating! Thank you for taking us down the St. George / Brandy Melville rabbit hole, which this elder millenial did not know about!
Best thing to come out of St. George's mostly odd vibe, was being introduced to your substack. An avid subscriber now!!
from: one of the women confused by the libertarian/fascist nature to Brandy Melville from the St. George picnic table discussion