Yes, SHEIN is a fast fashion brand.
SHEIN is a fashion wholesaling business founded in China. It has cleverly evolved into a global fast fashion site, with a focus on producing vast amounts of cheap clothing at high speeds.
Just like Romwe, SHEIN admits to being a fast fashion e-tailor. I can’t decide if these brands are trying to reclaim the phrase ‘fast fashion’, or they just don’t know it’s a negative phrase?
SHEIN has one meaningless page of information about its manufacturing, which focuses on ‘paying special attention to details such as fastening and ironing’ rather than providing a Code of Ethics or Anti-Slavery Statement.
For the first time ever, I spotted a 0/5 on sustainable fashion rating platform Good On You, for SHEIN’s approach to animals. Honestly, who knows what horrors this brand is hiding.
If that wasn’t enough, SHEIN offers payment using Clearpay and Klarna, both controversial buy-now-pay-later schemes that encourage higher value purchases and getting customers into debt.
Oh, and the SHEIN app was banned in India for stealing users’ data.
Oh, and there was that time they tried selling disrespectful Islamic prayer mats. And then swastika necklaces. In the same month.
Transparency Rating: N/A
Sustainability Rating: 1/5
This snippet is part of a larger guide to UK fast fashion brands, which goes into more detail about the issues with fast fashion, why it will never be sustainable, and how to make your wardrobe more sustainable.
Data for this review is taken from the brand’s website, corporate website, and Wikipedia. The Transparency Rating is from Fashion Transparency Index 2020. The Sustainability Rating is from Good On You.