The creator economy met the affordability squeeze this week in New York when TikTok darling and Brandy Melville SoHo staffer Allegra Pinkowitz was unceremoniously fired from her position with the controversial fast-fashion retailer after nearly two and a half years.
While one may not think the part-time retail gig of a high school junior is notable news, Pinkowitz is also an up-and-coming TikToker with a following of 162K-plus. Last year, she was the subject of a New York magazine article titled “The Most Popular Girl in SoHo is a Brandy Melville Employee,” about the flocks of girls who have been showing up to watch her fold clothes during weekend shifts or after school.
When Pinkowitz received the news from a male manager by phone on Thursday, she was on TikTok faster than you can say vibecession. After an announcement clip set to rapper ASN JAYBOOG’s “Stanley Earl,” she was back hours later to dish on how it all went down.
“This was so unexpected. You guys don’t understand — I’ve been working there for almost two and a half years,” she explains in the clip as she applies makeup; she told her fans she was about to get in the shower when a text arrived.
“It’s basically like, ‘Can you just give me a call whenever you have a minute?’ … He’s basically like, ‘We didn’t make as much money as we were hoping to this summer, so we’re laying off a bunch of people,'” she explained in a series of video cuts of her doing her beauty ritual. “It was just basically, ‘But I’ll hold on to your contact, and if anything comes up in the fall, maybe you can come back.’ This was extremely unexpected.”
