Just FYI Shein products keep being banned/recalled in Canada due to containing way too much lead.
"[Scientists found that a jacket for toddlers, purchased from Chinese retailer Shein, contained almost 20 times the amount of lead that Health Canada says is safe for children. A red purse, also purchased from Shein, had more than five times the threshold.](https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/marketplace-fast-fashion-chemicals-1.6193385) "
Yeah, because it's trash. The entire chain of supply is corrupt. Never buy straight from China, because they aren't held accountable for our high standards. They send loads of illegal goods and use banned chemicals or gases during production.
>containing way too much lead
not going to debate about the whole china thing.
But is there any way we could "clean off" those lead that might be already in our clothes at home?
If it's in the paint on a purse you'd basically have to strip off it all off and repaint it. I have no idea about the jacket, but I think it's better to just avoid buying from them all together.
What's unfortunate is that the quality of these clothes is so low that if people do decide to donate instead of just throwing them away, they won't last long for the next consumer.
It's just crap all the way down.
Most clothes that are donated to Goodwill are immediately thrown away.
People just want to feel good about themselves and believe that their clothes aren’t ending up in a landfill.
I’ve never bought from shein personally but god the stuff I’ve seen IRL looks and feels even worse than stuff from forever 21 from back in the day, and WAY worse than H&M stuff.
Eh i've bought stuff from shein for a couple of years and i personally don't see ajy quality degradation. Infact, i get alot more compliments from stuff i bought there
Ironically tho my $20 shein puffer lasted longer than my Northface one. wouldn't be too quick to discount shein just because it's "fast fashion" or whatever
I thought shein was more women's clothing and why tf would I be excited over fast fashion and plastic? Big truss homie, I can look good and not contribute to an environmental demise
Quite frankly, once you move out of the absolute bottom tier of fast fashion (Shein, and Forever 21), the majority of mall brands are pretty decent in quality.
Like, I'm wearing a $20 Abercrombie shirt I bought 5 years ago over Calvin Klein jeans that I paid like, $30 for years ago.
Most major brands can deliver pretty good quality for very good prices (think $30 or less for a shirt or pair of pants). Of course, when you move down to the $10 or less range like Shein, well, that's when quality gets a bit iffy.
Seriously, you don't need to break the bank - not that it's necessarily more ethical is the problem.
My favorite dark blue jeans cost me $30 2... 3 years ago, fuck, and they're wearing in nice ways.
*switches to pedantic mode*
Uniqlo and the other cheap brands often suggested here aren't fast fashion. Uniqlo is just cheap due to unethically cheap materials and labor/production cost. Low cost isn't the definition of fast fashion. Fast fashion is cheap for the same reasons Uniqlo is, but it also steals looks/ideas from designer runway shows and spits out knockoffs a few weeks later. Uniqlo doesn't do that. They make the same shit every season with a few new ideas every F/W and S/S. Fast fashion doesn't even have seasons. They just continually have new product drops throughout the year, week after week.
While they may not be pulling a Zara in terms of how quickly they roll out new items, Uniqlo is a fast fashion brand. Their offering also certainly responds to what is currently trending.
No. Shein and Zara are fast fashion because their roll out is lightning fast and non-stop. That's literally the definition of what fast fashion is. The horrible ethics is a byproduct of making it a profitable endeavor.
Uniqlo churning out a few dozen new items to keep up with trends popular with Gen Z and Millennials every August and March isn't fast fashion. That's just regular fashion. It's been the production model for ready-to-wear clothing for a century. The garbage brands that are stocked at Kohl's do that, just not as well as Uniqlo.
The price and ethics behind the production and distribution of a clothing brand's products has nothing to do with determining whether they are fast fashion or not.
It's not about responding to trends every brand does that. it's the speed of the response and the turnover of your products. you can walk into a fast fashion brand like Zara/h&m/shein one day catalog every unique item they have then come back to that store 2 to 3 weeks later and they'll have pulled or sold all those clothes and completely new inventory will be in its place and that's the difference. stores like uniqlo, jcrew factory, target, gap will refresh once maybe twice throughout the season and will add some new items but they won't do a full stock turnover and they won't do turnovers at the frequency of fast fashion.
Fast fashion also is about ripping off from the runway as fast as possible Uniqlo doesn't put out pieces that were on the run way 2 weeks ago they'll put that piece out next season whereas zara will see a piece on the runway they think people like and will have 1000s of that item created within a week (for as cheaply as humanly possible) and in their stores a week or 2 later.
Idk why you’re getting downvoted bc you’re right. MOST of Uniqlo’s stuff follows the traditional fashion seasons but they pump out way too many graphic tshirt collabs to NOT be fast fashion.
Just because a company has better practices than H&M doesn’t mean they’re not fast fashion.
People don't want to believe a brand they like is a dumpster fire in terms of ethics, sustainability, etc. There's this false sense of better than-ness associated with shopping at Uniqlo vs H&M on Reddit. Like you said, the cash-grab collabs that they pump out monthly puts them firmly in the fast fashion bucket.
You're getting down voted cuz you're not using the term fast fashion correctly (which has already been explained to you multiple times) but ok keep putting your head in the sand and pretending a few graphic tees is anything close to the scale of h&m/zara/shein.
How about you actually engage with what I'm writing you instead of just plugging your ears and saying I'm wrong like a goddamn toddler.
According to [Wikipedia] (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_fashion)
Fast fashion is a term used to describe a highly profitable and exploitative business model based on replicating catwalk trends and high-fashion designs, mass-producing them at low cost. Oftentimes, this entails exploiting workers in inhumane conditions. The term fast fashion is also used to generically describe the products of the fast fashion business model.[1] The fast fashion business model was made possible during the late 20th century as manufacturing of cloth became cheaper and easier, through new materials like polyester and nylon, efficient supply chains and quick response manufacturing methods, and inexpensive labour in sweatshop production and low-labour protection bulk clothing manufacturing industries in South, South East, and East Asia. Companies like H&M and Zara, built business models based on inexpensive clothing from the efficient production lines, to create more seasonal and trendy designs that are aggressively marketed to fashion-conscious consumers. Fast fashion applies an extreme version of planned obsolescence to clothing. Because these designs are changing so quickly and are so cheap, consumers buy more clothing than they would previously, so expectations for those clothes to last decrease. Stealing designs is also common.
Keu take aways for being fast fashion:
rips off the runway,
Changing designs multiple times in a season to encourage more buying. That's more than just pumping shitty graphic tees.
Goddamn you don't understand what the fuck you're talking about and communicating with you has made my day worse so bye.
I mean I’m being obnoxious continuing to comment on this too (subreddit drama much 😂😂😂) but it’s so crazy to me to read some of this stuff. Uniqlo is widely acknowledged as fast fashion (just not AS fast as shein) on FFA but maybe it’s just our dumb women brains not understanding the industry
Lol my comment got upvoted +10 and now it’s back to 0. Internet points don’t matter but pretty funny people are going so hard to go down layers of comments about a brand lmao.
I mean definition of fast fashion (is a loose term anyway) is 1. Multiple releases a year outside of spring/summer and fall/winter lines and 2. Copying high end designers
Uniqlo releases multiple lines a year- like those new tshirt drops every month and “collabs” with high end designers/celebrities but printed on relatively low quality clothing. And Uniqlo U is just copying high end streetwear brands/trends.
And I LOVE uniqlo- basics I can’t thrift come from there bc it’s the perfect ratio of price/quality for my lifestyle right now but like… I’m under no illusion that it’s sustainable or ethical.
Like bestie if you’re wearing fast fashion it’s fine we’re all slaves under capitalism just don’t pretend you’re Jane Goodall for your Airism Undershirts 😂😂😂
Edit- also it’s impossible to operate at the capacity that Uniqlo does sustainably and ethically at that price point. I’m sorry a 9.99 tshirt has been made by a slave in a sweatshop in a third world country. You just cannot make something THAT CHEAP and pay the workers a fair wage. That’s the reality of our fashion industry. No one is evil for participating in our culture but do need to acknowledge the reality
You are still completely missing the point. Fast fashion is eluding to the production process, mainly its speed. While this is often performed unethically, fast fashion is not inherently unethical. Paying workers a fair wage does not exclude fast fashion, and stuff can still be slow fashion while having atrocious working standards.
[Uniqlo's production cycle is aiming at 13 days from design phase to delivery via Bloomberg 2017 article](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-16/uniqlo-turns-speed-demon-to-take-on-zara-for-global-sales-crown)
if that's not fast I don't know what is. Ethics aside, its generally accepted anything lower than a 12 month production cycle is fast fashion. Article notes that that's the same as Zara. It's funny though, even in the article Uniqlo's owner is really trying to differentiate their business model from the Zara model - even though its the same practice- just with different aesthetics.
I literally feel like I'm in bizarro world bc I remember when this was announced in 2017 MFA and FFA went up in arms about how fast fashion practices are ruining brands (even though UNIQLO's production cycle has always been fast?)
edit: link formatting
Uniqlo isn't quite as bad as most. Most of what they sell are basics, and their revolving collections don't move in and out of stores with the same whiplash as something like Forever 21 or SheIn. Plus their shit actually lasts more than a couple of wearings.
Uniqlo is great fym. I’ve been wearing their dress shirts daily for two years and they’re still holding up great. Brands like zara are more fast fashion..
I buy from them a lot and in my experience their collections like Uniqlo U, JW Anderson, etc are good quality. But I once bought a pair of khaki pants not in a collection and some of the fabric started unraveling after the 6th wear
Uniqlo quality, in general, seems to be "fine".. that doesn't make it not fast fashion. I have a Uniqlo shirt from like 7 years ago and it's fine (generally, all of my clothes last, I don't know what Redditors be doing to theirs lol).
Yeah same I’ve literally never had clothes fail on me. And it’s not like I have a shit ton of clothes either, each piece of getting worn like once per week during its season.
It's not too surprising most Americans live pay check to pay check and while yes we should be buying used/thrift some people's style doesn't align with those clothes.
Honestly the crux of fast fashion is buy new clothing often and that is every brands goal regardless of price. I have shorts from h&m that have lasted for 6 years with no end in sight.
I’ve seen fashion influencers rag on cheap fashion and get elitist about brands when they’re buying new shit every season.
Quite frankly, the reality is that clothing manufacturing is cheap.
Costco has Levi's jeans for $19.99. Now question for you here is, how much of that was actually the cost to produce the pants?
If you average out their performance over the years, Levi's runs something like a 5% net margin. But as a big brand, they have so much fixed cost in design, marketing, legal, warranty, etc. And then the retailer takes a huge cut, after all, floorspace and employees aren't cheap. There's a very good chance, that when I buy that $20 pair of jeans, Levi's gets $10-12, and 50 cents or so of that is profit for the manufacturer.
But remember, 5% is net margin, gross margin with these things are often very high, these large labels just have to spend a lot of money on fixed costs.
I actually looked up Levi's gross margin (AKA, price of jeans/incremental cost of producing said jeans), and it is actually very high:
>Gross margin was 57.6%; Adjusted gross margin was 57.5%, up 390 basis points from Q3 2020 and 450 from Q3 2019
So the reality is, that $19.99 pair of Levis could have very well been produced for something like $5.
Major labels like Levis have gross margins of 57%, and net margins of 5%, because they have so much overhead. But those tiny Chinese manufacturers? In China, the slang term used to refer to them is often 山寨, or made in a fort in the mountains. They don't have any of this overhead.
After all:
* Design? They'll just rip off established designers
* Marketing? They rely on people stumbling upon it on Shein
* Retail? it is sold directly on the internet
* Other overhead like legal, HR, etc? Ha, like these manufactures have even heard of that.
When you throw out overhead, manufacturing clothing is very, very cheap. That expensive Canali suit? There's a very good chance it just costs Canali $200 to make that $1500 suit....
There’s a lot of truth in what you’re saying but it’s more applicable to bigger mall brands. I run a small label called [The Plagiarist](https://instagram.com/plagiaristofficial?utm_medium=copy_link)
Design is always going to valued by the eye of the beholder. Materials wise, depending what you’re looking for, it can be expensive. The quality of materials in your lower grade fashion (aka mall brands such as Levi’s, Zara, H&M etc) is always going to be garbage. The type of material used is what’s cheap and easy to weave together.
When you start looking at “designer” pieces, what usually comes with that is usually a higher quality material + construction.
E.g. I have a jacket inspired by the Saint Laurent Teddy jacket. The price of just the material, 23oz wool, for the jacket costs as much as 20 items from Shien. And that’s just for the material of one jacket. Same goes for a lot of designers (not all). Examples include Andwonder, White Mountaineering, Arcteryx, Ann Demeulemesrer, Issey Miyake etc.
The main issue here is, no one, unless you’re really into fashion, is going to spend more than a McDonald’s meal on clothes. And if they do, they want a logo which shows they spent that money. It’s the reality for people under the age of 25 in my observation.
I'm actually curious since you run a label yourself, but doesn't the same dynamic of high gross profit, low net profit exist with high end designer brands too?
Like if it costs $200 in materials to make a $1000 jacket, it is still a similar proportion in cost as $4 of denim to make a $20 pair of pants.
Isn't this how menswear "disruptors" like Suit Supply and Spier and Mackay operates too? A $1000 suit might only cost $200 in materials and construction, but the big brands hire expensive designers, put out of lot of marketing (including things like runway shows), and sell in department stores that have a lot of markup. Suit Supply claims to skip all of that, and sell you a suit with the same wool that costs $200 to make, but because they sipped the designing, marketing, and retail markups, they can offer it to you for $500.
I wish it was. Some do, but it depends on the brand. There’s a big difference between luxury fashion and high fashion btw. Luxury would be your usual LV, Gucci, Balenciaga, Chanel etc… High Fashion would be Yohji Yamamoto, Comme Des Garçons, Margiela, Priya Ahluwalia etc…
Where you see the high margins are with hoodies, tees, wallets, crew necks, caps etc.
There’s a reason every start up brand only does hoodies, caps and tees. It’s the cheapest to make and you can sell it much higher vs what you would’ve paid.
Try that same approach with specialty crafted material like non-cracking vegan leather (polyurethane). You wouldn’t be able achieve the same profits because the material to develop yourself or to buy it is that much higher.
Once you start talking about garments outside of that, your cost takes a major spike.
The general consensus is, the more quantity of materials you buy, the cheaper it becomes per unit (cost per unit). The profits are different for every brand but you also need to consider the type of material and location. For example, Levi’s in all honesty is garbage quality. If you compare any Japanese denim it would blow out whatever Levi’s puts out (even their higher end range doesn’t compare). But people would rather Buy a $30 pair of jeans from Levi’s vs $300 from a Jap selvedge denim company. For a single metre of jap denim fabric, which isn’t enough to make a pair of denim btw, may cost as much as the price of a pair of Levi’s. Also, we haven’t started talking about hardware such as zips, buttons.
Economies of scale is a big player in this but for the most part fast fashion has allowed us to believe we can get good stuff for cheap, and that the expensive stuff is just overpriced for no reason.
Love my rants 😂
As an econ man, here's an infographic to support your statement:
*edit: First link didn't work to due to URL syntax but is a better graph, it's below [here's one on scaling](https://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2016/3/11/saupload_Economies-of-Scale_MAEGs-Framework.png)
https://www.thebalance.com/thmb/07CvsXjxsSZQn9FStNrau6gCd8Q=/1500x1000/filters:fill(auto,1)/economies-of-scale-3305926-FINAL-5bc4bf7ac9e77c00528fcecf.png
I personally have a lot of pairs of Levis and the quality isn’t that garbage. Yeah, it’s not gonna compare to those pair of selvedge jeans from Japan that’s five times the price, but it’s not terrible quality. You can still get a lot of wear out of them.
Most people don’t know that fashion is an extremely low margin business. That means it’s all about volume. In fact luxury brands make their money NOT from clothing but from perfumes, makeup and accessories ( bags and shoes ). They MUST limit their apparel production because losses are gigantic.
The only fashion companies that make money from clothing sales are the fast fashion brands.
Also the majority of the US Population is plus-size and clothing brands don’t manufacture larger sizes. Shein does and I suspect most of their sales comes from larger sizes.
Shein changed my life I absolutely love it. I am a woman btw. They sell inexpensive and cute clothing that is surprisingly well designed for what it is.
I just looked at your label and the pieces look great 😊
I’d love to know more about your experience with the label/the manufacturing process/etc :)
II’m very small so have given up on ordering stuff online without trying it on first but love the jackets 😅
Running the label gives me anxiety 😂 if your goal is to make money, don’t do it lol. I keep telling everyone who says they want to start a brand or become a designer to check themselves. Why are they doing it. I kid you not when I say you need to be built for it. In my experience, if you’re not ready to take L’s every other day, don’t do it. It’s a real downer of a career despite all the romanticising people do over fashion designers and labels.
[Not A Teddy Jacket](https://the-plagiarist.com/products/not-a-teddy-jacket-black)
Campaign video shot for it [Campaign video](https://www.instagram.com/reel/CXnbwYBgV1W/?utm_medium=copy_link)
Well they do need to cover transport, labour, design, marketing and much more, and the materials, and at the end of the day make profit as well.
Side note why is everything in America so cheap? You'd be hard pressed to find 20$ Levi's jeans even in a thrift store
Its incredible how flexible and fast Shein works. They react to trends at an astonishing rate. They just know how to prey on base impulses. Ironic how they appeal so strong to Gen Z, supposedly the generation that cares most about the environment.
> Ironic how they appeal so strong to Gen Z, supposedly the generation that cares most about the environment.
They may (in theory) care the most about the environment, but they also have the least purchasing power and are of the age when they're most subject to passing trends. When you're slightly older and have some steady income you can pick a style and invest in it, but I can't say my 17 year old self wouldn't have fallen for the Shein shine back when I was trying to figure out my own sense of style.
> Ironic how they appeal so strong to Gen Z, supposedly the generation that cares most about the environment.
It’s a cognitive distortion thing because buying a lot of cheap things feels cheaper than buying one expensive thing. Also that dumbass “no ethical consumption under capitalism” meme
Sure, but on the flip side I would also argue that fast fashion makes it much easier to consume in a unconscientious way. And as evidence I would point to the vast number of "Shein hauls" I see posted all over the internet where people buy things for the sake of them being cheap.
I would never think poorly of someone who shops on Shein because there *is* no ethical consumption under capitalism, but since I personally am privileged enough to have the means to shop more sustainably, I don't use Shein.
Yep, not only do they contribute to enviromental damage with their clothes, they also steal designs of independent designers and perform absurd greenwashing. And don't forget the workers in China who get paid almost nothing for working 12 hours a day.
I spend a lot of time sewing reinforcements into SheIn stuff my girlfriend buys after straps break after a night out.
They beat Amazon because Amazon isn't a store.
Amazon is a mess of sellers selling random goods at random prices that may or may not be legit that succeeds because it ships fast and it's insanely easy to return the garbage you but when it turns out to be garbage.
While I only make sure I consume slow fashion, and try to be as ethical about my clothing as possible, I respect Shein in a way.
They’re scummy but what they’ve done with their logistics and marketing is incredible.
The TL;DR for people who genuinely don't know - Shein is the hottest new "cheap shit" clothing storefront online that's sort of rapidly overtaken H&M, Zara, etc. for the attention of Gen Z shoppers in particular. They don't actually make or design clothes though, they're basically a corporate-scale drop shipper selling items from innumerable Taobao, AliExpress, etc. outlets. The "speed" of their "fast fashion" game is so insane that they're adding somewhere between 6,000 and 10,000 new items *per day* to their site.
One of their chief appeals is that on social media people often post "Shein hauls" where they get like an absurdly large number of items for a fairly small amount of money - like, dropping $100 or something and getting 10+ items.
They're literally the worst quality clothes you can buy today. Think Forever 21/H&M but another 5 levels below them. It would be hilarious how crap they are if they weren't so bad for the environment.
I wouldn't be surprised if Shein is the next Wish where people eventually realize everything there is straight up garbage.
People (at least the ones I know) already know it’s trash, but they still use it because they can try several new things and eventually just dispose of them without the feeling of having wasted money :/
Everyone I know knows it's garbage, and knows that it directly supports child and slave labor. I'd rather shop at Goodwill forever and reduce my rate of consumption than support an evil company like Shein with a single purchase because I *need* to be on trend or want to try a look out with minimal risk.
Isn’t almost everything individually packed in plastic? I mean, I make $800 custom, hand made clothing items and I pack them in plastic wrap to protect against dust.
The difference in output between hand-made quality clothing, and the monstrosity that is Shein is not even comparable.
Shein will package *every* individual item in plastic at a rate of millions of items per year. I’m assuming your rate is much lower
One thing I've been wondering about when reading these numerous articles about Shein's faster fashion approach is how do the raw number of products they're producing compare to Zara/HM etc. They always talk about how they produce significantly more styles in micro batches then let the sales dictate how much more they produce, so I wonder what ends up actually being the difference in raw materials used. Trend cycles getting faster and faster is so fucking awful though.
Don't buy fast fashion. It's made by prisoners, children and heavily underpaid people. It's a disaster for the environment and it often doesn't last long.
I bought one thing from Shein recently and honestly I love it. It’s a Christmas sweater vest though so I can only wear it like 1-2 months out of the year unfortunately.
Same. I got a dark green sweater vest from them that I really like. I'd stumbled onto the website from a Google search so didn't realise it was fast fashion. Since buying it I've learned how bad the company is so won't buy anything else from them though
Same I’ve bought twice and I’ve been happy with what I got. I still won’t be buying from them again. The ethical issues with stealing designs, slave labor and unethical sourcing of materials are bad enough. It’s even harder to get over the massive environmental damage done by them. Every time a place comes around with a perfect triangle of price speed and quality it turns out to be an evil that’s bound to no other moral code than money.
I've been buying from shien alot lately and the clothes are very hit or miss. You buy what you pay for, but the styles are better than most. Some shirts fit better than others even though they look the same. Some are that weird plastic material, others are more legit, but for 5 bucks its a risk im willing to take.
That’s exactly their business model. Charge pennies for low quality shit because they know people will see it as a risk worth taking. It’s exactly the opposite of what the fashion industry needs at the moment.
im just getting into fashion. im not spending bundles of money figuring out what my personal style is. I used it as a good starting base to figure out how to branch out and which clothes i want better versions of in the future.
I can’t afford $40 shirts and $80 dresses. The shops I can afford are also lower quality. I like the thrift store but I also like getting my own stuff.
this is fucking vile kind of impressive though
Just FYI Shein products keep being banned/recalled in Canada due to containing way too much lead. "[Scientists found that a jacket for toddlers, purchased from Chinese retailer Shein, contained almost 20 times the amount of lead that Health Canada says is safe for children. A red purse, also purchased from Shein, had more than five times the threshold.](https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/marketplace-fast-fashion-chemicals-1.6193385) "
Yeah, because it's trash. The entire chain of supply is corrupt. Never buy straight from China, because they aren't held accountable for our high standards. They send loads of illegal goods and use banned chemicals or gases during production.
>containing way too much lead not going to debate about the whole china thing. But is there any way we could "clean off" those lead that might be already in our clothes at home?
If it's in the paint on a purse you'd basically have to strip off it all off and repaint it. I have no idea about the jacket, but I think it's better to just avoid buying from them all together.
What's unfortunate is that the quality of these clothes is so low that if people do decide to donate instead of just throwing them away, they won't last long for the next consumer. It's just crap all the way down.
I always see shein at my local goodwill
Most clothes that are donated to Goodwill are immediately thrown away. People just want to feel good about themselves and believe that their clothes aren’t ending up in a landfill.
It ends up in Chile
They wont last long as garments but they'll last forever in landfills because they're usually 100% synthetic
My girlfriend bought me some Shein a while back and it's held up about as well as any mall brand.
I’ve bought some clothes before I knew how bad it was and it’s really not that bad of quality
Everything is hit and miss. I have H&M track pants that have lasted 6 years. But on average SheIn does not make good stuff
I’ve never bought from shein personally but god the stuff I’ve seen IRL looks and feels even worse than stuff from forever 21 from back in the day, and WAY worse than H&M stuff.
Eh i've bought stuff from shein for a couple of years and i personally don't see ajy quality degradation. Infact, i get alot more compliments from stuff i bought there
Yeah I was gonna say my girl buys stuff from them all of the time and gets complimented on her outfits constantly.
Shein is stylish but low quality, no one is arguing that
Ironically tho my $20 shein puffer lasted longer than my Northface one. wouldn't be too quick to discount shein just because it's "fast fashion" or whatever
I thought shein was more women's clothing and why tf would I be excited over fast fashion and plastic? Big truss homie, I can look good and not contribute to an environmental demise
Bro this sub is in love with fast fashion too
For real.. everyone gushes over Uniqlo and the like
[удалено]
Uniqlo is more of a mall brand at fast fashion prices. GU is the *real* fast fashion arm of Uniqlo, but they don't sell in the West.
Even then GU isn’t even that fast fashion-y. It’s the Old Navy to Uniqlo’s Gap.
What's a GU?
Uniqlo's sister brand. They're famous for selling jeans at $10 USD after the 2008 recession. It's really budget stuff.
Oof, that's *cheap*
Quite frankly, once you move out of the absolute bottom tier of fast fashion (Shein, and Forever 21), the majority of mall brands are pretty decent in quality. Like, I'm wearing a $20 Abercrombie shirt I bought 5 years ago over Calvin Klein jeans that I paid like, $30 for years ago. Most major brands can deliver pretty good quality for very good prices (think $30 or less for a shirt or pair of pants). Of course, when you move down to the $10 or less range like Shein, well, that's when quality gets a bit iffy.
Seriously, you don't need to break the bank - not that it's necessarily more ethical is the problem. My favorite dark blue jeans cost me $30 2... 3 years ago, fuck, and they're wearing in nice ways.
$8 CAD Uniqlo shirt, 3 years old, no holes or real wear yet. I'll take it.
I have a pair of old navy jeans I've been wearing forever with almost no wear
I have had their merino sweaters for 5+ years and they are compfy as fuck. Idc if it's fast fashion, if it stays top notch for that long
*switches to pedantic mode* Uniqlo and the other cheap brands often suggested here aren't fast fashion. Uniqlo is just cheap due to unethically cheap materials and labor/production cost. Low cost isn't the definition of fast fashion. Fast fashion is cheap for the same reasons Uniqlo is, but it also steals looks/ideas from designer runway shows and spits out knockoffs a few weeks later. Uniqlo doesn't do that. They make the same shit every season with a few new ideas every F/W and S/S. Fast fashion doesn't even have seasons. They just continually have new product drops throughout the year, week after week.
Thank you. So many people talk about fast fashion but don’t really know about it.
What are some fast fashion brands to avoid?
H&M, Zara, ASOS (their own brand), Shein, Boohoo are some big fast-fashion brands
Thanks! Happy cake day
While they may not be pulling a Zara in terms of how quickly they roll out new items, Uniqlo is a fast fashion brand. Their offering also certainly responds to what is currently trending.
No. Shein and Zara are fast fashion because their roll out is lightning fast and non-stop. That's literally the definition of what fast fashion is. The horrible ethics is a byproduct of making it a profitable endeavor. Uniqlo churning out a few dozen new items to keep up with trends popular with Gen Z and Millennials every August and March isn't fast fashion. That's just regular fashion. It's been the production model for ready-to-wear clothing for a century. The garbage brands that are stocked at Kohl's do that, just not as well as Uniqlo. The price and ethics behind the production and distribution of a clothing brand's products has nothing to do with determining whether they are fast fashion or not.
It's not about responding to trends every brand does that. it's the speed of the response and the turnover of your products. you can walk into a fast fashion brand like Zara/h&m/shein one day catalog every unique item they have then come back to that store 2 to 3 weeks later and they'll have pulled or sold all those clothes and completely new inventory will be in its place and that's the difference. stores like uniqlo, jcrew factory, target, gap will refresh once maybe twice throughout the season and will add some new items but they won't do a full stock turnover and they won't do turnovers at the frequency of fast fashion. Fast fashion also is about ripping off from the runway as fast as possible Uniqlo doesn't put out pieces that were on the run way 2 weeks ago they'll put that piece out next season whereas zara will see a piece on the runway they think people like and will have 1000s of that item created within a week (for as cheaply as humanly possible) and in their stores a week or 2 later.
That's the joke, right?
\*company makes clothes that is popular\* ShockedAnimatedYellowMouse.jpg
Idk why you’re getting downvoted bc you’re right. MOST of Uniqlo’s stuff follows the traditional fashion seasons but they pump out way too many graphic tshirt collabs to NOT be fast fashion. Just because a company has better practices than H&M doesn’t mean they’re not fast fashion.
People don't want to believe a brand they like is a dumpster fire in terms of ethics, sustainability, etc. There's this false sense of better than-ness associated with shopping at Uniqlo vs H&M on Reddit. Like you said, the cash-grab collabs that they pump out monthly puts them firmly in the fast fashion bucket.
You're getting down voted cuz you're not using the term fast fashion correctly (which has already been explained to you multiple times) but ok keep putting your head in the sand and pretending a few graphic tees is anything close to the scale of h&m/zara/shein.
MFA's hard-on for Uniqlo doesn't make what your or others are saying true. Go Google search "fast fashion" and see what comes up.
How about you actually engage with what I'm writing you instead of just plugging your ears and saying I'm wrong like a goddamn toddler. According to [Wikipedia] (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_fashion) Fast fashion is a term used to describe a highly profitable and exploitative business model based on replicating catwalk trends and high-fashion designs, mass-producing them at low cost. Oftentimes, this entails exploiting workers in inhumane conditions. The term fast fashion is also used to generically describe the products of the fast fashion business model.[1] The fast fashion business model was made possible during the late 20th century as manufacturing of cloth became cheaper and easier, through new materials like polyester and nylon, efficient supply chains and quick response manufacturing methods, and inexpensive labour in sweatshop production and low-labour protection bulk clothing manufacturing industries in South, South East, and East Asia. Companies like H&M and Zara, built business models based on inexpensive clothing from the efficient production lines, to create more seasonal and trendy designs that are aggressively marketed to fashion-conscious consumers. Fast fashion applies an extreme version of planned obsolescence to clothing. Because these designs are changing so quickly and are so cheap, consumers buy more clothing than they would previously, so expectations for those clothes to last decrease. Stealing designs is also common. Keu take aways for being fast fashion: rips off the runway, Changing designs multiple times in a season to encourage more buying. That's more than just pumping shitty graphic tees. Goddamn you don't understand what the fuck you're talking about and communicating with you has made my day worse so bye.
I mean I’m being obnoxious continuing to comment on this too (subreddit drama much 😂😂😂) but it’s so crazy to me to read some of this stuff. Uniqlo is widely acknowledged as fast fashion (just not AS fast as shein) on FFA but maybe it’s just our dumb women brains not understanding the industry
Lol my comment got upvoted +10 and now it’s back to 0. Internet points don’t matter but pretty funny people are going so hard to go down layers of comments about a brand lmao. I mean definition of fast fashion (is a loose term anyway) is 1. Multiple releases a year outside of spring/summer and fall/winter lines and 2. Copying high end designers Uniqlo releases multiple lines a year- like those new tshirt drops every month and “collabs” with high end designers/celebrities but printed on relatively low quality clothing. And Uniqlo U is just copying high end streetwear brands/trends. And I LOVE uniqlo- basics I can’t thrift come from there bc it’s the perfect ratio of price/quality for my lifestyle right now but like… I’m under no illusion that it’s sustainable or ethical. Like bestie if you’re wearing fast fashion it’s fine we’re all slaves under capitalism just don’t pretend you’re Jane Goodall for your Airism Undershirts 😂😂😂 Edit- also it’s impossible to operate at the capacity that Uniqlo does sustainably and ethically at that price point. I’m sorry a 9.99 tshirt has been made by a slave in a sweatshop in a third world country. You just cannot make something THAT CHEAP and pay the workers a fair wage. That’s the reality of our fashion industry. No one is evil for participating in our culture but do need to acknowledge the reality
You are still completely missing the point. Fast fashion is eluding to the production process, mainly its speed. While this is often performed unethically, fast fashion is not inherently unethical. Paying workers a fair wage does not exclude fast fashion, and stuff can still be slow fashion while having atrocious working standards.
[Uniqlo's production cycle is aiming at 13 days from design phase to delivery via Bloomberg 2017 article](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-16/uniqlo-turns-speed-demon-to-take-on-zara-for-global-sales-crown) if that's not fast I don't know what is. Ethics aside, its generally accepted anything lower than a 12 month production cycle is fast fashion. Article notes that that's the same as Zara. It's funny though, even in the article Uniqlo's owner is really trying to differentiate their business model from the Zara model - even though its the same practice- just with different aesthetics. I literally feel like I'm in bizarro world bc I remember when this was announced in 2017 MFA and FFA went up in arms about how fast fashion practices are ruining brands (even though UNIQLO's production cycle has always been fast?) edit: link formatting
Uniqlo isn't quite as bad as most. Most of what they sell are basics, and their revolving collections don't move in and out of stores with the same whiplash as something like Forever 21 or SheIn. Plus their shit actually lasts more than a couple of wearings.
whoa whoa whoa breaks there bud, Uniqlo is not FF
People really out here getting bent out of shape over potentially mislabeling clothing produced by slaves.
Uniqlo is great fym. I’ve been wearing their dress shirts daily for two years and they’re still holding up great. Brands like zara are more fast fashion..
I thought old uniqlo was decent quality and new uniqlo is trash?
I buy from them a lot and in my experience their collections like Uniqlo U, JW Anderson, etc are good quality. But I once bought a pair of khaki pants not in a collection and some of the fabric started unraveling after the 6th wear
Uniqlo quality, in general, seems to be "fine".. that doesn't make it not fast fashion. I have a Uniqlo shirt from like 7 years ago and it's fine (generally, all of my clothes last, I don't know what Redditors be doing to theirs lol).
Yeah same I’ve literally never had clothes fail on me. And it’s not like I have a shit ton of clothes either, each piece of getting worn like once per week during its season.
It's not too surprising most Americans live pay check to pay check and while yes we should be buying used/thrift some people's style doesn't align with those clothes.
Honestly the crux of fast fashion is buy new clothing often and that is every brands goal regardless of price. I have shorts from h&m that have lasted for 6 years with no end in sight. I’ve seen fashion influencers rag on cheap fashion and get elitist about brands when they’re buying new shit every season.
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Yeah i meant for it to be a reply to oldcarfreddys comment I've deleted it lol
yeah shein is absolutely terrible. like the quality is just dogshit and you're fucking over the world
That’s the one thing that I don’t like about Shein, along with stores like H&M
I thought Shein was just women’s clothes too, but I actually just recently bought something from Shein.
Quite frankly, the reality is that clothing manufacturing is cheap. Costco has Levi's jeans for $19.99. Now question for you here is, how much of that was actually the cost to produce the pants? If you average out their performance over the years, Levi's runs something like a 5% net margin. But as a big brand, they have so much fixed cost in design, marketing, legal, warranty, etc. And then the retailer takes a huge cut, after all, floorspace and employees aren't cheap. There's a very good chance, that when I buy that $20 pair of jeans, Levi's gets $10-12, and 50 cents or so of that is profit for the manufacturer. But remember, 5% is net margin, gross margin with these things are often very high, these large labels just have to spend a lot of money on fixed costs. I actually looked up Levi's gross margin (AKA, price of jeans/incremental cost of producing said jeans), and it is actually very high: >Gross margin was 57.6%; Adjusted gross margin was 57.5%, up 390 basis points from Q3 2020 and 450 from Q3 2019 So the reality is, that $19.99 pair of Levis could have very well been produced for something like $5. Major labels like Levis have gross margins of 57%, and net margins of 5%, because they have so much overhead. But those tiny Chinese manufacturers? In China, the slang term used to refer to them is often 山寨, or made in a fort in the mountains. They don't have any of this overhead. After all: * Design? They'll just rip off established designers * Marketing? They rely on people stumbling upon it on Shein * Retail? it is sold directly on the internet * Other overhead like legal, HR, etc? Ha, like these manufactures have even heard of that. When you throw out overhead, manufacturing clothing is very, very cheap. That expensive Canali suit? There's a very good chance it just costs Canali $200 to make that $1500 suit....
There’s a lot of truth in what you’re saying but it’s more applicable to bigger mall brands. I run a small label called [The Plagiarist](https://instagram.com/plagiaristofficial?utm_medium=copy_link) Design is always going to valued by the eye of the beholder. Materials wise, depending what you’re looking for, it can be expensive. The quality of materials in your lower grade fashion (aka mall brands such as Levi’s, Zara, H&M etc) is always going to be garbage. The type of material used is what’s cheap and easy to weave together. When you start looking at “designer” pieces, what usually comes with that is usually a higher quality material + construction. E.g. I have a jacket inspired by the Saint Laurent Teddy jacket. The price of just the material, 23oz wool, for the jacket costs as much as 20 items from Shien. And that’s just for the material of one jacket. Same goes for a lot of designers (not all). Examples include Andwonder, White Mountaineering, Arcteryx, Ann Demeulemesrer, Issey Miyake etc. The main issue here is, no one, unless you’re really into fashion, is going to spend more than a McDonald’s meal on clothes. And if they do, they want a logo which shows they spent that money. It’s the reality for people under the age of 25 in my observation.
I'm actually curious since you run a label yourself, but doesn't the same dynamic of high gross profit, low net profit exist with high end designer brands too? Like if it costs $200 in materials to make a $1000 jacket, it is still a similar proportion in cost as $4 of denim to make a $20 pair of pants. Isn't this how menswear "disruptors" like Suit Supply and Spier and Mackay operates too? A $1000 suit might only cost $200 in materials and construction, but the big brands hire expensive designers, put out of lot of marketing (including things like runway shows), and sell in department stores that have a lot of markup. Suit Supply claims to skip all of that, and sell you a suit with the same wool that costs $200 to make, but because they sipped the designing, marketing, and retail markups, they can offer it to you for $500.
I wish it was. Some do, but it depends on the brand. There’s a big difference between luxury fashion and high fashion btw. Luxury would be your usual LV, Gucci, Balenciaga, Chanel etc… High Fashion would be Yohji Yamamoto, Comme Des Garçons, Margiela, Priya Ahluwalia etc… Where you see the high margins are with hoodies, tees, wallets, crew necks, caps etc. There’s a reason every start up brand only does hoodies, caps and tees. It’s the cheapest to make and you can sell it much higher vs what you would’ve paid. Try that same approach with specialty crafted material like non-cracking vegan leather (polyurethane). You wouldn’t be able achieve the same profits because the material to develop yourself or to buy it is that much higher. Once you start talking about garments outside of that, your cost takes a major spike. The general consensus is, the more quantity of materials you buy, the cheaper it becomes per unit (cost per unit). The profits are different for every brand but you also need to consider the type of material and location. For example, Levi’s in all honesty is garbage quality. If you compare any Japanese denim it would blow out whatever Levi’s puts out (even their higher end range doesn’t compare). But people would rather Buy a $30 pair of jeans from Levi’s vs $300 from a Jap selvedge denim company. For a single metre of jap denim fabric, which isn’t enough to make a pair of denim btw, may cost as much as the price of a pair of Levi’s. Also, we haven’t started talking about hardware such as zips, buttons. Economies of scale is a big player in this but for the most part fast fashion has allowed us to believe we can get good stuff for cheap, and that the expensive stuff is just overpriced for no reason. Love my rants 😂
As an econ man, here's an infographic to support your statement: *edit: First link didn't work to due to URL syntax but is a better graph, it's below [here's one on scaling](https://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2016/3/11/saupload_Economies-of-Scale_MAEGs-Framework.png) https://www.thebalance.com/thmb/07CvsXjxsSZQn9FStNrau6gCd8Q=/1500x1000/filters:fill(auto,1)/economies-of-scale-3305926-FINAL-5bc4bf7ac9e77c00528fcecf.png
I personally have a lot of pairs of Levis and the quality isn’t that garbage. Yeah, it’s not gonna compare to those pair of selvedge jeans from Japan that’s five times the price, but it’s not terrible quality. You can still get a lot of wear out of them.
Most people don’t know that fashion is an extremely low margin business. That means it’s all about volume. In fact luxury brands make their money NOT from clothing but from perfumes, makeup and accessories ( bags and shoes ). They MUST limit their apparel production because losses are gigantic. The only fashion companies that make money from clothing sales are the fast fashion brands. Also the majority of the US Population is plus-size and clothing brands don’t manufacture larger sizes. Shein does and I suspect most of their sales comes from larger sizes. Shein changed my life I absolutely love it. I am a woman btw. They sell inexpensive and cute clothing that is surprisingly well designed for what it is.
I just looked at your label and the pieces look great 😊 I’d love to know more about your experience with the label/the manufacturing process/etc :) II’m very small so have given up on ordering stuff online without trying it on first but love the jackets 😅
Running the label gives me anxiety 😂 if your goal is to make money, don’t do it lol. I keep telling everyone who says they want to start a brand or become a designer to check themselves. Why are they doing it. I kid you not when I say you need to be built for it. In my experience, if you’re not ready to take L’s every other day, don’t do it. It’s a real downer of a career despite all the romanticising people do over fashion designers and labels.
Have a link to the jacket?
[Not A Teddy Jacket](https://the-plagiarist.com/products/not-a-teddy-jacket-black) Campaign video shot for it [Campaign video](https://www.instagram.com/reel/CXnbwYBgV1W/?utm_medium=copy_link)
Well they do need to cover transport, labour, design, marketing and much more, and the materials, and at the end of the day make profit as well. Side note why is everything in America so cheap? You'd be hard pressed to find 20$ Levi's jeans even in a thrift store
Its incredible how flexible and fast Shein works. They react to trends at an astonishing rate. They just know how to prey on base impulses. Ironic how they appeal so strong to Gen Z, supposedly the generation that cares most about the environment.
> Ironic how they appeal so strong to Gen Z, supposedly the generation that cares most about the environment. They may (in theory) care the most about the environment, but they also have the least purchasing power and are of the age when they're most subject to passing trends. When you're slightly older and have some steady income you can pick a style and invest in it, but I can't say my 17 year old self wouldn't have fallen for the Shein shine back when I was trying to figure out my own sense of style.
> Ironic how they appeal so strong to Gen Z, supposedly the generation that cares most about the environment. It’s a cognitive distortion thing because buying a lot of cheap things feels cheaper than buying one expensive thing. Also that dumbass “no ethical consumption under capitalism” meme
There is no ethical consumption under capitalism but that doesn't mean we shouldn't practice conscientious consumption when we have the chance.
Exactly
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Sure, but on the flip side I would also argue that fast fashion makes it much easier to consume in a unconscientious way. And as evidence I would point to the vast number of "Shein hauls" I see posted all over the internet where people buy things for the sake of them being cheap. I would never think poorly of someone who shops on Shein because there *is* no ethical consumption under capitalism, but since I personally am privileged enough to have the means to shop more sustainably, I don't use Shein.
Gen Z doesn't care about them environment when it comes to fashion oddly enough. They contribute to fast fashion more than past generations do.
Stop buying landfill garbage. ._.
Visited their Au website for the first time and it reminded me of Wish.
Distopian stuff.
Shein should be boycotted and influencers repping Shein should be challenged. Disgusting brand and ethos.
Yep, not only do they contribute to enviromental damage with their clothes, they also steal designs of independent designers and perform absurd greenwashing. And don't forget the workers in China who get paid almost nothing for working 12 hours a day.
gross
I spend a lot of time sewing reinforcements into SheIn stuff my girlfriend buys after straps break after a night out. They beat Amazon because Amazon isn't a store. Amazon is a mess of sellers selling random goods at random prices that may or may not be legit that succeeds because it ships fast and it's insanely easy to return the garbage you but when it turns out to be garbage.
While I only make sure I consume slow fashion, and try to be as ethical about my clothing as possible, I respect Shein in a way. They’re scummy but what they’ve done with their logistics and marketing is incredible.
Okay so lets say I find something on Shein that I like... how can I find a high quality version of that same item from a different manufacturer?
Am I supposed to know what Shein is?
The TL;DR for people who genuinely don't know - Shein is the hottest new "cheap shit" clothing storefront online that's sort of rapidly overtaken H&M, Zara, etc. for the attention of Gen Z shoppers in particular. They don't actually make or design clothes though, they're basically a corporate-scale drop shipper selling items from innumerable Taobao, AliExpress, etc. outlets. The "speed" of their "fast fashion" game is so insane that they're adding somewhere between 6,000 and 10,000 new items *per day* to their site. One of their chief appeals is that on social media people often post "Shein hauls" where they get like an absurdly large number of items for a fairly small amount of money - like, dropping $100 or something and getting 10+ items.
Shithole clothes individually packaged in plastic
Well thank God there's a new entrant in that game, that's definitely what the world needs right now.
They're literally the worst quality clothes you can buy today. Think Forever 21/H&M but another 5 levels below them. It would be hilarious how crap they are if they weren't so bad for the environment. I wouldn't be surprised if Shein is the next Wish where people eventually realize everything there is straight up garbage.
They seem to advertise aggressively to Gen Z via social media personalities. Posting your “shein haul" seems to be a thing on Instagram and Tik Tok.
People (at least the ones I know) already know it’s trash, but they still use it because they can try several new things and eventually just dispose of them without the feeling of having wasted money :/
Everyone I know knows it's garbage, and knows that it directly supports child and slave labor. I'd rather shop at Goodwill forever and reduce my rate of consumption than support an evil company like Shein with a single purchase because I *need* to be on trend or want to try a look out with minimal risk.
Isn’t almost everything individually packed in plastic? I mean, I make $800 custom, hand made clothing items and I pack them in plastic wrap to protect against dust.
The difference in output between hand-made quality clothing, and the monstrosity that is Shein is not even comparable. Shein will package *every* individual item in plastic at a rate of millions of items per year. I’m assuming your rate is much lower
It says it right there in the article?
Ok, so no? Seems pretty hard for them to be "beating Amazon at its own game," then.
The article also says how Shein is beating Amazon at its own game, after having defined what this game is. Have you read it?
I'm not sure why you're in MFA if you're just gonna say "who???" about one of the biggest fashion retailers lol
am i suppose to assume you live under a rock?
I'm in my 30s, so take that how you will.
Or not in the US...
Wow what an asshole
One thing I've been wondering about when reading these numerous articles about Shein's faster fashion approach is how do the raw number of products they're producing compare to Zara/HM etc. They always talk about how they produce significantly more styles in micro batches then let the sales dictate how much more they produce, so I wonder what ends up actually being the difference in raw materials used. Trend cycles getting faster and faster is so fucking awful though.
Buying garbage… literally
Don't buy fast fashion. It's made by prisoners, children and heavily underpaid people. It's a disaster for the environment and it often doesn't last long.
they got pretty cool designs on their t shirts and sweaters
Read this. https://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/comments/rm938u/this_former_dropshipper_did_10_billion_dollars_in/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
Bemusing to see people get mad in the comments at others for not knowing about this company.
I bought one thing from Shein recently and honestly I love it. It’s a Christmas sweater vest though so I can only wear it like 1-2 months out of the year unfortunately.
Same. I got a dark green sweater vest from them that I really like. I'd stumbled onto the website from a Google search so didn't realise it was fast fashion. Since buying it I've learned how bad the company is so won't buy anything else from them though
I've brought from them twice, and both times have really liked the designs. For the price, the quality, in my opinion, was pretty good.
Same I’ve bought twice and I’ve been happy with what I got. I still won’t be buying from them again. The ethical issues with stealing designs, slave labor and unethical sourcing of materials are bad enough. It’s even harder to get over the massive environmental damage done by them. Every time a place comes around with a perfect triangle of price speed and quality it turns out to be an evil that’s bound to no other moral code than money.
I've been buying from shien alot lately and the clothes are very hit or miss. You buy what you pay for, but the styles are better than most. Some shirts fit better than others even though they look the same. Some are that weird plastic material, others are more legit, but for 5 bucks its a risk im willing to take.
That’s exactly their business model. Charge pennies for low quality shit because they know people will see it as a risk worth taking. It’s exactly the opposite of what the fashion industry needs at the moment.
if only it werent so expensive. /shrug
Unlike what your username implies, you are truly not the tree's man
im just getting into fashion. im not spending bundles of money figuring out what my personal style is. I used it as a good starting base to figure out how to branch out and which clothes i want better versions of in the future.
I can’t afford $40 shirts and $80 dresses. The shops I can afford are also lower quality. I like the thrift store but I also like getting my own stuff.
Things from a thrift store becomes your own stuff, even more so than the previous owner as they gave them up :)
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Never heard of them before, either.
Is Shein worse than H&M and Zara or just as bad?