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Shein beat Amazon and reinvented fast fashion
- peanut_worm 5y agoI wonder if there is any tie between wearing extremely cheap microplastic shedding polyester and getting cancer
- thoughtpeddler 5y ago+1. I've also wondered about this for a long time, especially as someone who wears a lot of fleece products. This blog post (https://alexdanco.com/2019/12/17/ten-predictions-for-the-2020s/ https://alexdanco.com/2019/12/17/ten-predictions-for-the-202...) describes it well. Quoting: > At some point in the 2020s ... we're going to learn that some sort of chemical or microscopic thing that’s inside everything, all around us, actually has some horrible health effect we never knew about before. My pick for what it’ll be? Microplastics – particularly the microplastics inside clothing, like athleisure. > I have no idea what kind of health hazard it’ll pose, but it’ll be one that takes a long time to develop, and where childhood exposure gets linked in a study to some awful condition that happens to you later. It could be that all these cheap, fast-fashion clothes are secretly off-gassing some volatile organic compound that we breathe in and gives us cancer later, or maybe it could be something like physical micro plastic particles getting on our hands, and then into our stomach when we eat, and then it gets linked to some digestive disorder or intolerance, or maybe it kills our gut bacteria, or I dunno. Couldn't agree more. (The rest of his 10 Predictions for 2020 missed the most important one...)
- gnicholas 5y agoThe clothes my kids have from Shein seem much higher quality than H&M. They are definitely softer/plusher, and they also seem to be more durable.
- phantomathkg 5y agoBut did you check how much chemical did they put in the clothes that make the cloths your kids are wearing? Highly likely is the amount they put in exceed the safe limit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQdonJ8yE1k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQdonJ8yE1k
- gnicholas 5y agoReally appreciate you sharing this link. Seems like only plasticized items (bibs, rain jackets, purses) were affected, not any regular cloth-based clothes (sweatshirts, t-shirts, pajamas). I'll be sure we are careful sourcing plasticized items, and if there is evidence that their cloth-based items are affected please share with the rest of us. We always wash clothes before wearing because of the chemicals used during manufacture, and to make clothes feel soft in the store.
- gromitss 5y agoThey are copies of brands that pay designers and the materials are often synthetic trash that look good.
- ggm 5y agoFast fashion is a root cause of a huge amount of fabric waste, plastic waste, and cost shifting of waste streams to developing nations. Not to say Shein isn't responding well to an economic niche. Just, that it has an externalised cost: disposal of clothes on a fashion whim is not a good thing.
- xapata 5y agoLet's just tax carbon extraction and not worry about who's doing what with it. Although I suppose there's a separate externality to creating friable material. The issue of discarding too much should be addressed with higher prices at the dump.
- ggm 5y agoBottle and can recycling worked with incentives. But both are valuable to the receiver outside of the cash incentive on energy grounds. I don't think fabric recycling has that energy benefit so I am unsure incentives would work full life cycle. But you could be right: carbon pricing down to the edge on all things might actually be good economics if we can work out how to make it run. Please don't say blockchain
- IgorPartola 5y agoI have one better than blockchain. When can we all get those futuristic ones piece outfits with the lightning bolt across the torso? I was led to believe that’s what everyone would be wearing sooner or later.
- ggm 5y ago"Things to come" (1935) and "metropolis" (1927) said loincloths and Greek togas for elites but boilersuits for plebs. I would wear a spandex "onesie" with a lightning bolt.. for about 30 seconds.
- throwhauser 5y ago
- Loranubi 5y agoA good German language video about Shein https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Go4Npf1hYU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Go4Npf1hYU tldr: huge amount of waste, bad working conditions, copyright infringement
- kuschku 5y agoYou should prefer the video on the same topic from Brust Raus, another funk channel, over this video series from Simplicissimus. Simplicissimus got unusually emotional and preachy in this video, which I'm going to count against them because they have their own fashion brand with 80€+ sweaters "produced in Europe" (which means they couldn't even write produced in EU, which in turn means it's going to be produced in Turkey, under similarly bad conditions as Shein produces). They didn't make such a series about any other fast fashion brand, and I'm pretty sure the reason they got this preachy is not because of the bad work conditions or environmental issues, but because they fear that SHEIN will copy their own designs. I'm very disappointed that they made such a video, considering the entire industry of fast fashion as well as the parts of the fashion industry based on exclusivity are at fault, and it's not just limited to one company like Shein but a systemic problem. If you avoid SHEIN and buy from another fast fashion brand, or even CultureCulture, the label of the Simplicissimus authors, you've done nothing to avoid the problem. Buy second hand products instead. Learn sewing. Fix old clothes instead of throwing them away. Also see the Strg F documentary on Sneakerjagd how Nike just grinds up new unsold sneakers to ensure exclusivity and grinds up returns to avoid having to process them.
- fritztastic 5y agoVery informative article. It's rather disturbing to read about so much undercutting and unethical practices to satisfy consumer demands. Makes me wish more people might become mindful of the impact of their purchases, so they make a conscious decision of whether or not to feed an industry that does business like this.
- notyourwork 5y agoPeople (in general) mind their wallet, expecting anything more is futile. This is the same reason we are still having a debate about wearing masks or doing other things that benefit more then one self.
- serverlessmom 5y agoI would also argue that this is just another side effect of a society that has conditioned us to overwork ourselves to such a level of exhaustion that to spend less of our resources(money and/or time) will always feel logically justified.
- coolso 5y agoAdd another company to the pile of “companies profiting off of cheap Chinese goods at the expense of the American worker/economy and the environment”.
- markdown 5y agoAmerican worker? Shein sells worldwide. H&M (mentioned elsewhere in this thread) and other US brands don't ship to most countries in the world, if they ship overseas at all.
- seanmcdirmid 5y agoPretty sure H&M is not a US brand given all the H&M shops I saw in Europe long before I saw any in the USA. According to Wiki, they are Swedish. They also have stores in China.
- andylynch 5y agoH&M is the second largest clothing retailer in the world and based in Sweden- they trade in 75 countries. The only one bigger is Inditex from Spain.
- markdown 5y agoThey may trade in 75 countries, but I'll say again, the vast majority of people in the world can't go online and buy from H&M. They won't ship internationally. A guy in Samoa, Pakistan, or most other countries can't go to hm.com and buy anything. Shein ships to 220 countries.
- seanmcdirmid 5y agoShein is a Chinese company itself, so they wouldn't really be hypocritical here. Is it better or worse than an American company profiting off of Chinese goods at the expensive of American worker/economy and environment? I guess we could just keep the goods all out, but the distributors aren't going to survive if it is allowed and they don't do it.
- 5y ago
- greenie_beans 5y agoi posted this 8 days ago, always makes me curious how the hn algo works, maybe cause you edited the title or timing? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29559044 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29559044
- phnofive 5y agoFor your curiosity: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=hacker+news+algorithm https://hn.algolia.com/?q=hacker+news+algorithm It's considered acceptable to repost an article for a second try, so long as you don't delete the original. It's mostly just timing, though I have bookmarked a few users' profiles for a shortcut to curation :)
- akiselev 5y agoDo you mind sharing some of those bookmarked users? I haven't even thought about using HN that way
- neuronic 5y agoAt least it isn't really subject to arbitrary moderation like on reddit. I have a pretty good idea what posts are sensible on hn. However, I keep posting stuff on r/de (German subreddit) and mods remove it or let it pass at a whim even though very clear rules have been established over the years. Sometimes thread types which I have clearly seen before with hundreds of upvotes are removed because of violating content rules. The next day someone posts a picture of a frog and it's sitting at 2.6k upvotes (I think the Wednesday frog meme is super embarrassing but anyway...)
- adolph 5y agoThe headline is very different from the article. At the heart of these issues is Shein’s aggressive business model. Comparisons to fast-fashion giants like H&M miss the point: it’s more like Amazon, operating a sprawling online marketplace that brings together around 6,000 Chinese clothing factories. It unites them with proprietary internal management software that collects near-instant feedback about which items are hits or misses
- dragonelite 5y agoIf im not mistaken this model has been called customer2factory
- noisy_boy 5y agoWhat I have noticed in Shein's app is that their pictures are meticulously done. Average stuff looks great with professionally done pictures with professional models. Not saying all their stuff is ordinary (they generally have good variety/design) but there is no hodgepodge mix and match of images of varying quality ranging from potato to great (e.g. compared to Alibaba/Shopee/Lazada/Aliexpress etc) - they all look awesome.
- dakial1 5y agoQuality of the product media is a huge influence on customer trust. AirBnb is a great case on that, as their effort to take professional photos of the listed properties had a huge positive impact on trust and conversion.
- hooby 5y agoNever even heard of SHEIN before yesterday, when I happend to come a cross a well-researched video that uncovered how SHEIN exploits workers in chinese sewing sweat shops, and how most of their designs are stolen from small western fashion creatives.
- neuronic 5y agoSo just like their "Amazon's Choice" counterparts... this kind of practice should be illegal on an international basis given the ecological and human impact but corporate exploitation is still going strong. We need much more transparency about these practices, be it SHEIN, Amazon or Apple... I do doubt however that people would make more conscious consumer choices even if they know about it. The pandemic has made me very pessimisic.
- hooby 5y agoIt is illegal. But for a small, independent fashion designer it's not quite feasible to take on a large Chinese corporation in court.
- mejutoco 5y agoFashion is not protected the same way as other creative works, so some amount of copying (the designs, not logos) might be legal. (IANAL and I remembered it vaguely, here they explain a bit better) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fashion_design_copyright https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fashion_design_copyright
- numlock86 5y agoShein is actually a thing? I heard of it and seen it occasionally, but I always stamped if off as the wish.com for clothing. EDIT: Reading the article and others about Shein my assumptions were apparently correct. Sigh.
- dmos62 5y agoWhy is fast fashion bad but slow or regular fashion not? Fashion is valuing things based on some definition or perception of popularity. It's chasing the dragon.
- cainxinth 5y agoFashion is art. Just happens to be art you can wear. Art is generally considered to be good culturally and economically for a society. But anything can be corrupted. Fast fashion is an especially deleterious evolution of wearable art, imho.
- dmos62 5y agoIf fashion were art you wouldn't have the word fashionable, in the same way that you don't have the word artful.
- cainxinth 5y agoYou’re entitled to your opinion and there’s no definitive answer, I suppose, but I just googled: “Is fashion art?” and virtually every result on the first page said yes.
- dmos62 5y agoWell it's not really the type of question to be answer via a referendum. Maybe it's fashionable to consider fashion art? Haha.
- pharmakom 5y agoFast fashion drives more waste, environmental harm and illegal (or just shady) labour practices. If the cost of externalities were captured in the price, then fast fashion probably wouldn't exist. You can't sell a $5 dress without lax environmental and labour standards. Slow fashion on the other hand is about creating items that last for years, even decades. Each item might have greater environmental cost to produce, but the cost per wear is far lower.
- aaron695 5y ago