Shein, Fast Fashion Hit With Gen Z, Tries Charm to Counter Scrutiny

Attendees at the Los Angeles event didn’t seem to dwell much on onlookers’ wider concerns about Shein. When asked about accusations of copying, several designers said that creatives often looked to others in the field for inspiration. They seemed more interested in networking with Shein executives and fellow designers. They twirled in their latest designs and said they wanted to learn more about how they could use Shein’s name to help elevate their own.

Designers in Shein X said that the retailer’s massive audience had helped catapult their brand and that their sell-through rates were high. During happy hour, two participants jumped up and down after they realized that Shein had posted their photo and tagged it on Instagram, increasing their exposure to its 1.7 million followers.

“If you look at the amount of people who gravitate to the Shein brand, it’s millions of folks, and the exciting part is even if you reach just a third of those people you’re winning,” said Kenya Freeman, whose line Sylvia Mollie has been sold on Shein since January 2021.

Shein still uses more than 250 in-house designers and third-party suppliers to design the clothes shoppers see on its website and mobile app. And on TikTok, independent designers still post videos accusing the company of ripping them off.

In 2020, Shein established a team in the United States to review potential intellectual property violations. Previously, those reviews were conducted in China. It also invested in image-recognition technology to recognize cases of potential infringement and required third-party suppliers to certify that their products don’t infringe on others’ intellectual property. A spokeswoman said there was a double-digit percentage decline in infringement claims from 2021 to 2022. She declined to share exact numbers.

Armand Mehidri, a 30-year-old Dubai-based designer in the Shein X program, said Shein used its data to help him sell more of his designs. After receiving a message from Shein alerting him that one of his shirts was selling well and suggesting he put the same design on hoodies and tank tops, he did just that, and they kept selling, he said.

While Shein X has given designers the opportunity to expand their businesses, working with the retailer still comes with baggage. After Casey Russell, 33, announced in 2022 on social media that he had been accepted into the program, he said that for two days he received “the traditional hate mail whenever you do something with a brand that’s seen as bad.” Critics flooded his Instagram comments and direct messages, calling him a sellout and claiming he was ruining the environment by making fast-fashion clothes.