By Esme Carty

Looks like capitalism truly is more important than environmental consciousness—at least it is to Everlane. On the 17th of May, it was revealed that the “sustainable” brand, Everlane, was acquired by one of the biggest fast fashion giants, Shein. The acquisition of the brand came out to a total $100 million—according to Puck, Everlane was in $90 million of debt—which means only one thing: they chose an investment over their brand ethos.

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The behemoth that is Shein is a Chinese company that sells a multitude of items including clothing, beauty, home, electronics, and so much more, all for an average price of $10 per item. The company boomed during the pandemic at the same time Chinese-owned company, TikTok took over the U.S. and Europe. It is said that the social media platform had a huge influence on spreading the awareness of Shein to the masses. Shein is similar to Amazon in that it partners with thousands of third-party suppliers—much of them in Brazil, China, and Turkey—to make its products and then ship them to a large, centralized warehouse. At the start of 2025, BBC released an article about the inside of the Chinese factories fueling Shein’s success. Key points they found were:

• The employees that sit behind sewing machines for Shein work an average of 75 hours a week in violation of Chinese labour laws; that’s 15 hours a day for a five day work week or 10.7 hours a day with no days off in a week.

• The factories (there’s thousands of them) that are home to Shein are full of sewing machines, rolls of fabric, and bags of cloth scraps. The doors to the basements are always open for the endless cycle of deliveries and collections.

• Employees are paid per piece, the wage is dependent on how difficult the item is, a simple t-shirt is around $0.18. An employee said that she can make around a dozen of those t-shirts in an hour which calculates to $2.16/hour.

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Now to Everlane and what they have said to “stand for” according to their website. Their slogan has been and still is “We’re on a mission to clean up the industry. It’s a movement we’re calling Cleaner Fashion.” They talk about their priority being putting their principles into practice, these principles include:

• Keep Earth Clean: Their focus is to reduce natural resource consumption, minimize waste and pollution, and prioritize safer chemicals being used.

• Keep Earth Cool: They commit to climate reduction targets approved by the Science Based Targets Initiative, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by more than 50% per-product by 2030, and achieve Net-Zero emissions by (or before!) 2050.

• Do Right By People: They work consistently to enhance their worker’s livelihood, achieve gender equality, and promote fair living wages (hmmmm).​

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After taking a look at both of these companies, it’s wild to know that these companies are now somewhat synonymous. So let’s direct our attention to vintage shops around the U.S. that you should visit:​

1. Phoenix, Arizona: Newell Vintage

2. Los Angeles, California: Happy Isles

3. Atlanta, Georgia: The Clothing Warehouse

4. New Orleans, Louisiana: Century Girl

5. Detroit, Michigan: BORO

6. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Hermine

7. New York, New York: BEFORE NY

8. Austin, Texas: Prototype Vintage

9. Salt Lake City, Utah: Chielo Vintage

10. Seattle, Washington: Lucky Vintage