TAKING the shine OFF SHEIN

With its exceedingly low price points, this global juggernaut is dominating the wardrobes of young women everywhere. But what's the real cost of Shein, and is it a price we can afford? Adrienne Tam reports

- Adrienne Tam

Nineteen-year-old Gabriella is over the moon. The Brisbane TikToker, who goes by the handle gabriellaabeth, has more than 1.2 million views of her video featuring her first ever "Shein haul" - the highest number by far for any of her TikTok videos. 

"I got so excited watching others buy and receive their Shein orders so I finally caved and bought from them. Considering each product is so cheap, if I was to buy from Shein more often I think the cost would sit around the $20 to $50 mark, mainly because you can have so many items for so much less," she tells marie claire. "I would 100 per cent recommend Shein, as it's so affordable and I think just about anyone can find something they'll like or even love from the store."

Gabriella is just one of hundreds of thousands of mostly young women sharing footage on social media of the items they've bought from fashion brand Shein (pronounced "she in"), with the hashtag #sheinhaul at more than 9.2 billion views on TikTok. While Gabriella isn't paid - yet - for spruiking Shein, many of her fellow influencers are. These #sheingals, a mix of fashion bloggers and microcelebrities, help the brand multiply its reach. The more the reach grows, the more people consume Shein. It's nooth machine churning out hashtags and hauls as easily as it does designs. With anywhere between 2000 to 10,000 new styles added each day, Shein eclipses its competitors in terms of sheer output.

One thing is certain: this is no longer just fast fashion. It's ultra-fast fashion and critics say it comes at a high price. As sales have soared across the globe, this saturation of nonstop fashion at pocket-money prices has been increasingly condemned for both its negative impact on the environment and its poor labour practices. Shein's ultra-fast fashion model may be cheap but is it actually costing the earth?