Everlane, Shein and the Decline of Millennial Optimism

**SPEAKER_1** (0:02)
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio, News.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:07)
I love the fit, the comfort, basic style, good quality.

**Sarah Holder** (0:13)
You might know the clothing company Everlane for its plain tees, sensible work pants, millennial cool basics.
Or you might know it more by reputation. The brand's marketing has always touted its commitment to quality, sustainability and to transparent pricing. These days, Everlane isn't the retail darling it once was. It's laden with debt and struggling to connect with customers the way it did in the mid 2010s. But outside the company store in lower Manhattan in early June, customers told us Everlane's stated values are a big part of the reason they've kept shopping there. They mostly use pretty good material that it will last.

**Anupriya Agarwal** (0:53)
They brand it as radically sustainable and they're also transparent about where they source their clothes from.

**Sarah Holder** (1:00)
But that last customer, Anupriya Agarwal, said she might reconsider shopping at Everlane.

**Anupriya Agarwal** (1:06)
When I found out that it's been acquired by Shein, which is like this mega fast fashion brand outlet, it was very appalling to me.

**Sarah Holder** (1:17)
Shein, the e-commerce giant founded in China, bought Everlane last month from its private equity owner. The sale price reported $100 million.
Shein is a king of fast fashion. As of 2022, it released about 1,000 new women's clothing styles every day, leading to concerns that its clothes aren't just fast fashion but low quality and disposable. In addition to its environmental impact, the company has also come under scrutiny for the labor conditions of its suppliers. In some ways, Shein seemed like the anti-Everlane.

**Anupriya Agarwal** (1:55)
I just have questions around why they decided to sell to Shein. It just doesn't align value-wise.

**Sarah Holder** (2:03)
Many other Everlane customers had a similar reaction.

**SPEAKER_2** (2:06)
Wake up, babe.

**Amanda Mull** (2:07)
Everlane apparently is selling to Shein for $100 million.

**Sarah Holder** (2:12)
This is my last straw.

**SPEAKER_6** (2:14)
What do you mean one of the most controversial fast fashion brands is acquiring, allegedly, a brand that's a leader in ethical, sustainable, modern consumerism?

**Sarah Holder** (2:24)
The Internet seemed to echo with, wait, what?

**Michael Preysman** (2:28)
It was in some ways great to know that that many people cared.

**Sarah Holder** (2:32)
That's Michael Preysman, who co-founded Everlane back in 2011 He stepped down as CEO in 2021 and left the company's board in January 2026
When he heard about the sale, he called up another former board member.

**Michael Preysman** (2:46)
I don't think either of us expected that kind of a reaction because in many ways, Everlane had lost its way in the past few years.

**Amanda Mull** (2:54)
Even if you don't really shop there anymore, what probably stays with you from Everlane as a brand is the fact that they did have this ethical consumer ethos.

**Sarah Holder** (3:04)
Amanda Mull is a reporter for Bloomberg Businessweek.

**Amanda Mull** (3:07)
People who took that at face value or even people who were mildly skeptical of it, were shocked that Everlane, that the people in charge of it would say, all right, we're going to sell this to the highest bidder, even if the highest bidder is sort of the opposite of the original Everlane promise.

**Sarah Holder** (3:30)
I'm Sarah Holder, and this is The Big Take from Bloomberg News. Today on the show, Everlane, Shein, and why retail can't bank on millennial optimism anymore.
Everlane launched in San Francisco in the 2010s during the early days of a direct-to-consumer boom. And Bloomberg's Amanda Mull says, right away, it found its audience.

**Amanda Mull** (3:57)
It designed clothes that were very much targeting a young, white-collar woman who cared about the stuff she bought and wanted high-quality basics in a sort of design-forward, well-considered type of style.

**Sarah Holder** (4:13)
Yeah, it felt like a very millennial brand. I was living in San Francisco, and there was one right on Valencia Street, and I would always wander in to the very stark, basic, white building.

**Amanda Mull** (4:24)
Yeah, sort of like the aesthetic was somewhat like Apple Store for clothing.

**Sarah Holder** (4:29)
Exactly.
But when it launched, Everlane wasn't a brick-and-mortar store. It was a website built around an idea.

**Amanda Mull** (4:37)
It was the Obama era, you know, it was after the Great Recession. You had millennials as a huge consumer generation coming into the workplace, sort of starting to grow up a little bit into adulthood. And you had like a generation of idealistic young people who were looking to express their values however it was possible.
Everlane saw this generation and went, we could tell them how clothes are made. We could help them feel good about the choices they're making.