Shein’s recent $100 million acquisition of Everlane is raising big questions about the future of fast Fashion: If mass-market fashion continues to grow at this rate, will there be a fashion future at all?
Fast fashion is a rapidly growing, largely unregulated industry that has become one of the most contentious topics across multiple sectors. From an environmental standpoint to an economic one, the implications of fast fashion’s sartorial takeover are one of the clothing industry’s most puzzling quandaries. And now with the recent Everlane acquisition, it’s also one of the most ironic.
Since its inception, Everlane has existed as the antithesis to everything Shein represents. Where Everlane was founded on the principles of sustainability, ethical production, and high-quality materials, Shein has found itself at the center of constant critique regarding its environmental impact and dicey labor conditions. As it stood, these brands represented opposite ends of the fashion equity spectrum. So, to see Shein, the biggest fast-fashion brand in the world, buy out one of the few sustainability-focused fashion brands out there, feels like quite the dystopian procurement. In an interview, Everlane CEO Alfred Chang told The Business of Fashion that the partnership is an opportunity for global expansion that won’t sacrifice Everlane’s core ethos.
However, the news still isn’t sitting well with large portions of the fashion community. In particular, the acquisition raises concerns regarding the precedents this might set for the future of fashion as a whole.
About the Acquisition
Everlane was founded in 2011 by Michael Preysman and Jesse Farmer to eliminate middleman markups and create a more seamless and transparent shopping experience. Everlane operated under a direct-to-consumer (DTC) model, which mitigated traditional retail markups. The brand platformed radical transparency, something that was relatively unheard of in the fashion world. This hypertransparency manifested in shared price breakdowns explaining the costs of everything from labor expenses to transportation and material costs. In doing this, Everlane was able to remove some of the long-standing mystery surrounding most retail pricing. This vested interest in transparency extends to the factories as well. Everlane’s openness about the production process included showing customers the actual factories where the garments were produced, including the day-to-day labor conditions.
This presents quite the contrast to Shein, the largest fast-fashion conglomerate in the world, which is constantly in the hot seat for promoting overconsumption with its excess production. According to a study by Rest of the World, Shein added 2,000-10,000 new styles to its app daily between July and December 2021. This presents astounding implications for the exploitation of the workers responsible for this output. But since Shein uses cheap, synthetic materials and outsources labor, the brand can sell its products at a much lower price point, which makes them more accessible to the average consumer.
This is likely why Shein was able to thrive financially while Everlane, which targeted conscious millennials with quality basics, experienced declining profits. In May 2026, Everlane was valued at just $100 million, a sharp decline from its peak evaluation of $600 million in 2020. At the time of the acquisition, Everlane was also carrying $90 million in debt.
Enter Shein. Worth between $45 and $66 billion, the fast-fashion brand was poised and primed to take over the struggling company, well, at least financially. In just about every other aspect, though, the transition was not as smooth as many critics online expressed discontent with the acquisition, citing it as the end of sustainable DTC fashion.
Others have pointed out that despite Everlane’s outward messaging, the brand’s sustainability marketing was just that — marketing.
Some have gone as far as to describe Everlane as another Shein, just with better, “green-washed” packaging.
Fast Fashion and the Black Community
Shein and the Black community have a very layered relationship. On the one hand, Shein, like many other fast fashion brands, has been accused of copying the original designs of many Black creators. These mega-corporations observe the trends created by the Black community, replicate them, and then sell them back to the very same communities that created them.
But scroll on TikTok long enough, and you’ll soon be met with any number of seasonally relevant Shein clothing hauls, and Black shoppers make up a good bulk of these creators. As with most consumer content, the more hauls are shared, the more traffic is driven to the brand, creating a never-ending consumption cycle. See more, buy more. It’s how fashion operates.
But the Everlane acquisition is symptomatic of a much bigger undertaking that extends beyond our FYPs. Fast fashion is coming for every arena of our lives. Just take a look at Fashion Nova, a brand once centered on baddie club wear, which is now branching out into the fitness sector with its new Fashion Nova Sport line, which, from a business standpoint, is quite the logical sequitur considering how fitness content has infiltrated the daily wardrobe zeitgeist.
But the differences between brands like Fashion Nova and Shein, which are strong in their fast-fashion identities, and conscious-identifying brands like Everlane are becoming harder to distinguish. What’s the difference between an ethical brand and a brand just acting the part? Even though Everlane wasn’t as financially viable as Shein, many have noted the dissonance between its $600 million valuation and its sustainable, ethical practices. Scaling of that level gives pause for good reason.
On the other hand, brands like Shein offset some of the guilt that might come from clicking ‘pay now’ with affordable prices, which appeal to people who can’t always put consciousness above their pockets. Ideally, buying from independent designers, big or small, is one of the best ways to build a wardrobe that you can feel good about on both a stylistic and moral level.
But that is not always the most accessible path, which is why brands like Everlane were able to thrive as the ultimate liminal space between mega corporations and independent designers. It was the perfect mix of ethical and affordable, a feel-good moment for your morals and your wallet.
But if these so-called ethical brands are essentially up for sale to their fast-fashion counterparts, then what is the difference?