If you’re on TikTok, Instagram or anywhere on the internet that gives a platform to influencers, you’ve probably seen them do a clothing haul. A clothing haul is where a person will spend money to get a large assortment of items from what is usually an online store and try them on in a video. These videos sometimes get millions of likes, views and comments online. A very common sort of clothing haul is SHEIN hauls.
SHEIN is an online clothing retailer that sells trendy clothing styles for very cheap prices. This makes it the perfect marketplace for these online clothing hauls. According to SHEIN’s own website, they are an international “fast fashion e-commerce company.” While shopping for fast fashion and getting tons of new and trendy clothes for a low cost may seem like a good thing, companies like SHEIN are contributing to overconsumption, pollution and human waste.
The pros and cons of fast fashion
Fast fashion is a term used to describe clothes that are produced cheaply in large quantities and sold at an extremely low cost. While fast fashion may seem like a great way to get a bang for your buck, the fast fashion industry is responsible for high carbon emissions, high usage of water resources and most of all, large contributions to already growing landfills. In addition to that, while the clothes produced by the fast fashion industry may be on trend, they’re often poor quality and have some element of discomfort when wearing them.
However, it would be wrong to not include the fact that fast fashion is the most accessible way to get trendy clothing with a lower income. Shopping from fast fashion brands like SHEIN because it’s simply the most affordable option is very different than an online influencer buying twenty new tops and deciding they only like half of them.
The largest problem with the fast fashion industry is that it relies entirely on trends. Inevitably, trends will come and go and when clothing goes out of style it probably won’t be worn again by the person who purchased it.
In addition to this, fast fashion companies often rip off independent creators with no acknowledgement of their work or original designs. One such example of this is designer Lirika Matoshi, who designed the original “strawberry dress,” which retailed on her website for nearly five hundred dollars. The high price tag includes the high quality materials used during production, as well as time spent making each individual garment. Within months of the “strawberry dress” going viral online, fast fashion companies like SHEIN began selling nearly identical versions under similar names for under fifty dollars. Now, the cheap versions of this viral dress can be found in the back of closets, in garbages or at your local Goodwill.
Thrift stores are now oversaturated with last season’s SHEIN hauls. People often donate the clothes that they didn’t like or no longer wear, but even if those clothes are bought again, in the end most of the clothes from SHEIN end up in a landfill. Garments of clothing take hundreds of years to decompose in a landfill and contribute to environmental degradation and water pollution.
The problem with massive clothing hauls
While SHEIN may be inexpensive, if someone can continuously put out content containing these massive hauls of clothing purchases, they probably aren’t shopping out of necessity. Influencers are not only promoting the toxic fast fashion industry but also promoting overconsumption. While the clothes in SHEIN hauls may look cute for the millisecond that they’re on screen, the inevitable truth is that at least some of these articles of clothing won’t ever be worn again.
While SHEIN does accept returns, the clothing can’t be worn at all and must be in its original packaging. After filming clothing hauls the clothing has of course been worn and often can’t be returned, so they’re either donated to a secondhand store or thrown out.
When influencers post these massive SHEIN hauls, they’re showing support for fast fashion companies and influencing their followers to support the fast fashion industry. While it may be fun to try on new and trendy clothes, if someone has the privilege of being able to shop sustainably and intentionally, they should do that instead of wasting their money on massive clothing hauls from companies like SHEIN and justifying their purchase because it’s cheaper.
