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What happened to the nice clothes?

Shein helped reset fashion around ultra-low prices. Now rising costs, competition, and quality concerns are squeezing the brands caught in the middle

JUAN MABROMATA / AFP via Getty Images

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In 2022, Shein looked like the future of fashion. The company turned an endless stream of $5 tops and $10 jeans into a global retail empire, and investors valued it at nearly $100 billion.

That future has lost some of its appeal. Shein went public in Hong Kong earlier this month at a valuation of about $26.5 billion, down almost 75% from its peak, and its shares fell as much as 10% in early trading on the first day.

The pain didn't stop with the IPO figures. First-quarter revenue growth slowed to 1.1%, U.S. sales dropped 14.3%, and the company swung from a $395 million quarterly profit a year earlier to a $99 million loss, although that loss included a $328 million fair-value accounting charge.

Shein's diminished IPO is less a verdict on fast fashion than a sign of how much the rules have changed. Cheap, fast, and constantly changing used to be Shein's particular advantage. Now they're........

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