Shein turbocharged fast fashion’s business model. But with investors focusing more on companies' environmental impact, the retailer’s promotion of disposable fashion may be evolving into its biggest threat SHEIN_Official
Bruce Einhorn and Daniela WeiLike many Shein customers, Jaleesa King doesn’t expect the Chinese fast-fashion giant’s clothes to last longer than it takes to post a good selfie on Instagram. The 26-year-old reckons she spends as much as US$500 twice a month on about 20 to 30 clothing items she’ll barely wear. “Maybe just once or twice, that’s all,” she says, laughing, as she browses Shein’s San Francisco pop-up shop, a special marketing event for the usually online-only retailer.
Some of the criticisms Shein faces apply to its rivals, too. Fast fashion is an enormously wasteful business, exacerbating the fashion industry’s environmental impact, according to a 2019 report by the World Bank, which said the number of new garments produced had doubled compared to the 50 billion made in 2000.
Accusations of copyright theft have become another problem for Shein. Since the start of 2021 the company has been hit with at least 40 US lawsuits alleging that it infringed the plaintiffs’ intellectual property. That’s more than three times as many as Urban Outfitters, H&M, and Zara combined, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Whinston says Shein’s suppliers certify that they do not infringe third-party IP.
The company has introduced its own requirements for manufacturers, saying it won’t tolerate child or prison labor or the underpayment of workers. Implementing these policies may be tough unless Shein pays its suppliers more to comply—an unlikely move for a business built around rock-bottom prices, say some apparel experts in China.
Mollmann’s court complaint said Shein’s “notorious and well-documented business practices are predicated upon willfully violating the rights and interests of independent artists.” She is seeking at least US$100 million in damages. “You constantly hear about it in the artist-designer community,” says Sara M. Lyons, 36, a fashion designer in southern California whose copyright theft case against Shein is still pending. “I don’t think it affects their bottom line enough to care.
Customers queue at a Shein pop-up shop in San Francisco last month. Photographer: K. Oanh Ha/Bloomberg
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