You thought you’d broken your fast fashion habit? Get set for supply chains on steroids

Even if you’ve never heard of Shein, make no mistake: they’re not just big, they’re huge. Despite their popularity, many people still know little or nothing about who they are or how they operate. I first reported on Shein in 2020 as they were trending online for selling swastika necklaces and prayer mats at bargain basement prices. This led to accusations of cultural appropriation and insensitivity toward Jain, Jewish and Muslim populations and a public apology from Shein. At the time, getting verified information about their supply chain or a responsive press contact was virtually non-existent.

What I learned back then is that Shein is obscure in some ways and highly visible in others.

Originally called Sheinside, the brand is reported to have been founded in 2008 in China by entrepreneur Chris Xu, a digital marketer with a background in selling wedding dresses online. Some other media reports say it was founded in 2012, and publicly available details about the founders and owners vary.

Shein enlists the help of social media influencers in the US, UK and Australia on platforms such as Instagram and TikTok to grow their customer base. Their haul videos, where people post about the latest batch of Shein items they’ve bought, have become notorious, with 4.8 billion views under the hashtag #sheinhaul on TikTok – double that of a similar hashtag for Zara. And their social media following is enormous: 24 million on Instagram and counting.

Although Shein have been around for almost 15 years, it’s really only in the past two that the firm has exploded. It would take more than a few cultural missteps to curb the rise of this ultra-fast fashion giant. People can’t get enough of it. In 2021, Shein overtook Amazon as the most downloaded shopping app in the US.

Much of this success is down to savvy digital marketing of low-cost, low-quality garments and what’s known as persuasive design on the app, where you just keep coming back to browse and shop, again and again, often for things you don’t need and will never wear.

The BBC reports that Shein now ships to more than 220 countries and the average cost of an item is £7.90 (€9.45). You can buy a full outfit for about 30 quid. The brand uses what is called a “test and repeat” model where items are initially made in small batches and either discontinued or repeated depending on their popularity. But what I find most interesting about Shein is the timing and scale of how it is blowing rivals away. And, more importantly, who is buying it and why?

Shein’s rise in popularity happened at a time when the fashion industry was supposedly going through a reset and becoming more conscious of its environmental and social impact. It was also when we were at home over lockdown, re-evaluating our priorities and becoming more climate-literate. The news headlines over the past week throw this paradox of values and norms of behaviour into sharp focus.

At the same time that the latest IPCC report was warning us about the radical action needed to stop climate change, the fashion brand Shein was valued at $100bn. That’s the same as SpaceX (Elon Musk’s space exploration company) and more than Zara and H&M combined. At the same time that my social media was filled with experts preaching about the benefits of energy efficiency and renewables as a way to save on rising bills and future-proof our homes and the planet, an eye-catching bar chart about Shein was circulating on Instagram and Twitter.

This chart, produced by the Business of Fashion and Edited HQ, illustrates the astonishing number of new items Shein releases. It makes other big players look minuscule. Where H&M released 4,414 new styles in the US market and Boohoo released 18,434 new styles, Shein released 314,877 new items.

How is it even physically or logistically possible to release around 10,000 new items a day?

The world feels like a very confused place right now. There is the Greta Thunberg generation who are genuinely concerned for their future and begging world leaders to listen and do more. They are actively trying to find solutions to the world’s biggest problem. But there is also an arguably bigger cohort getting addicted to the Shein app and living for the dopamine hit of likes that come with posting a pic of their new outfit.

It’s hard not to sound like a judg- mental old biddy when characterising an entire group in this way. Finger wagging at influencers or alienating large groups who are stuck to their phones isn’t going to change their shopping habits in vast numbers. Clamping down on the practices of fast fashion will. In the words of Professor Dilys Williams of the Centre for Sustainable Fashion in London: “We need to take away the licence to do harm.”

Far from judgment, I’m genuinely curious to understand what is driving this level of consumption. A recent comment from the author Lauren Bravo goes some way toward answering this question. Bravo, who wrote the book How To Break Up With Fast Fashion, said: “We’ve reached the point where clothing is now essentially being sold as a “fast-moving consumer good”, in the same category as snack foods, fizzy drinks, toothpaste – “as something entirely disposable, to be consumed once and then thrown away”.

If the primary purpose of clothing is no longer about actually wearing them for a sustained period of time, but rather is about being photographed in them for a few minutes on social media, then our relationship with clothing needs a rethink.

There are other ways to digitally post about or wear ‘new’ clothing, from rental to resale to even using augmented and virtual reality apps, for example. These alternatives don’t involve buying from a brand that has been accused of exploiting workers with 75-hour weeks or of allegedly ripping off independent designers (which Shein denies). But they do involve a little bit of effort, imagination and a small step away from abnormally low prices and instant gratification.

Anne-Marie Tomchak is a journalist and entrepreneur. You can follow her on social media @amtomchak