This is depressing. I wish I’d never read about the Chinese fast-fashion retailer with prices so low that frenzied shoppers flock to a pop-up shop six hours before opening, armed with cash to bribe the security guard to let them skip the line. All for a chance to buy suspect goods. Fraudulent knock-offs. Sketchy manufacturing. Cheap materials.
With goods that are destined for the landfill after only a few wearings, “goods” seems aspirational.
Besides the usual things a women’s clothier sells, Shein offers pet hammocks, wigs, rugs, milk frothers, fake toenails, steering wheel covers, lingerie and toothbrushes. This is about as far from fewer things…better things as one can get. But the targeted demographic (which is not mine) can’t get enough of Shein. It’s leaving H & M and other fast fashion retailers in a the dust. And according to the source in this Times story, it recently surpassed Amazon as the most downloaded shopping app in the US. (Seems improbably, but that’s what it said.)
It’s something when you make H & M look good and Amazon look small. I’ll leave it to you to decide what that “something” is.