Hello, Brandy Melville

Look who had their first venture into Brandy Melville this week... Yep, that would be me! I've heard YouTubers rave about Brandy Melville for ages now (especially meghanrosette and Macbarbie07) and couldn't resist looking up where I might find me some crop tops and loose fit tanks. For as popular as the brand is now, they have a surprisingly limited number of stores but luckily I hunted the San Francisco store down on GoogleMaps and trekked (literally) my way up there. I will say it's in a pretty removed part of town up in Cow Hollow/Marina District even though the strip of stores on Chestnut St. is pretty cute. I expected it to be more accessible and near the Union Square/Powell area since that's where all of the name brands reside. I was also stupid enough to think that the bus would be a hassle and decided to walk from the Financial District - bad idea. The hills were ridiculous and by the time I got there I was heaving to catch my breath (didn't help that I lugged my laptop around after work...) and I was sort of disappointed by how small the store was. There are only 3 dressing rooms and with all the tween girls trying on every crop top in the store, the wait can get pretty long. I ended up giving up and just buying without trying anything on, but if I go back I will have to strategically plan to go during non-peak hours (4 pm was a bad idea). However, they did have really cute displays of all of their clothes and it was easy to navigate through.

I had scoured the website a few nights before looking to see if they still had the bralette Amy from shopvagabondyouth had shown in her haul video that I absolutely fell in love with. It's called the Chiyo top and it's everything I've been looking for! It's a thick cotton material and covers the entire front, transitioning into this super pretty caged back that's perfect to wear with open back shirts, dresses, loose tank tops, muscle tees, the list could go on. It's such an interesting piece for the summer, especially now that the open back look is super popular... I feel like I need to go buy a bunch of twist-back tank tops now because I just want to wear this all the time. It is a one size fits all bralette and doesn't have any padding but I haven't found any problems with it. It's the perfect size for me and ahh I don't know what else to say but that it's perfect! The only thing I would say is that it's a bit overpriced for my liking at $19 (on the tag, though it says $18 on the site).