Shein Buying Everlane: Why I’m Not Surprised

If you’re doing fast fashion volume, you’re fast fashion.

Photo by Valna Studio on Unsplash

I remember years ago, a new friend pulled out a slip dress from her closet to show me when I told her that I’m into sustainable fashion.

« Look, this is Everlane! » — implying something that should elicit approval.

I remember being genuinely confused. Isn’t Everlane the company that said that they want to be sustainable but aimed to sell at volumes that rival fast fashion brands? Isn’t that physically impossible?

Unfortunately, today’s North American consumer has been conditioned to think that clothing is supposed to be cheap to make.

As someone who’s started her own brand, and learned pattern making and sewing from scratch, all I have to say is — go ahead and try it. If you think a bathing suit is too expensive for the little fabric that it is, go ahead and buy the fabric and try to sew it yourself. You’ll quickly understand the reality of the industry.

“Sewing is women’s work” — one of the seamstresses that helped me with my brand told me.

And that’s the hardest part for me to accept.

If men were the ones sewing the clothes, they would be as precious and valued as are cars, houses, electronics. Because at the working level, making clothes, especially with stretch fabrics, rivals engineering in skill and precision. Getting fabric to behave the way you want it to behave, and in a repeatable way so that you can have identical products to offer consumers, and make sense and are desirable to them, is a lot harder than it looks.

And unfortunately, the market doesn’t know that.

You, dear reader, I assume at some point in your life received payment for your work. Work you probably trained for at least some time to be able to do, even if it’s on-the-job training. Ideally, you got compensation that recognized that skill and experience. Why don’t seamstresses deserve the same?

Electricians, construction workers, plumbers — they all have a rivalling trade skill that — where I live at least — is paid fairly. Most of those jobs are done by men. See where I’m going with this?

But here’s the kicker my local sewing industry is painfully aware of: if you raise seamstress wages to fair and favourable — the same way they are for electricians, construction workers, and plumbers—the final cost of goods will go up so high that the average person will not be able to afford to buy many pieces in their average year. A very simple dress rises to 200$+ CAD if it includes 1.5 hours of skilled labour (1.5 x $35 = $52.5), shipping ($30+), fabric, notions and sewing supplies (~$20-$40), and miscellaneous costs like non-manufacturing labour, shipping materials, margin for returns, customer service costs, etc etc.

Of course, places like Shein then become attractive for their price point, and from my experience, North American seamstresses know not to charge too much because they know that if they do, the final price points can become unsustainable and they might price themselves right out of work in the future if the brand is forced to close or move their production overseas.

So, back to my point: if a brand is doing high volumes, and isn’t a luxury brand that the ultra-rich regularly shop, it’s that it’s at a price point the average consumer can afford more than occasionally — otherwise, they wouldn’t have the volume. To be able to achieve this with a product that requires hours of skilled labour, they are most likely cutting the costs in a place that is invisible to the consumer — that very skilled labour behind the seams. If they’re doing that, well, do you like being underpaid for skilled work?

I hope to live to see the day when women who sew stand up and say “Enough, value our contribution and skill as you do a man’s”. Because if they all do it at the same time and hold out, they’ll flip the industry on its head and force consumers to change their attitude towards clothing and bring it up to the same value as houses and cars. But alas, this will require a huge shift in mindset and habits, not to mention livelihood risks, and we can all only do our best.

As Margaret Mead said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” It’s my hope that with the world transition currently happening, we’re headed for a reframing of how we look at what we put on our bodies every day. I hope we’ll move to a place of honouring and appreciating every part of the long and complex manufacturing process, and cultivating a relationship of love, care, expression and joy with our clothing. One can dream ♥