The Glossy Podcast

Earlier this week, Glossy wrote about Everlane’s reported sale to Shein, a deal that will put one of the defining sustainability-adjacent DTC brands of the 2010s inside the world’s most scrutinized ultra-fast-fashion machine.

The headline was a shock to many, as the two companies represent almost opposite ends of the modern fashion conversation. Everlane has built its identity around “radical transparency,” elevated basics and factory disclosure since its 2010 founding by Michael Preysman and Jesse Farmer. On the other hand, Shein, founded in 2008, has become known for rock-bottom prices, rapid production, and ongoing criticism from fair labor and sustainability advocates. It is also known for its $66 billion valuation in 2023, when it was reported that the company had started to chase an IPO.

On this week’s Glossy Fashion Podcast, Jasmine Malik Chua, climate and labor editor at Sourcing Journal, joined the conversation to talk through what the deal says about brand values, investor pressure and the future of sustainability-led fashion.

Chua has reported extensively on Shein and Temu, forced labor, textile waste, garment worker protections, sustainability regulation, and climate risk. Her first reaction to the Everlane news, she said, was visceral.

“I think I just screamed inside for like two hours,” Chua said.

The reported deal follows a difficult period for Everlane, which had been carrying significant debt and not been profitable for some time. But for Chua, the story points to a fundamental tension between slow-fashion values from brands like Everlane and the kind of fast-growth that venture-backed brands are expected to deliver.

“Due diligence is a cost,” Chua said on the podcast. “Doing the right thing doesn’t come cheap.”

As VCs demand more from the brands they invest in, consumers expect to pay less — in Everlane's case, that's because of competitors like Uniqlo and Quince, for example.

Everlane was never purely a sustainability brand — Preysman often framed it around transparency, rather than sustainability. And the company built real credentials on both fronts, Chua said, with factory disclosure and a 52% reduction in absolute carbon emissions.

The question now is whether those values will survive under Shein's ownership.

Chua said Shein may be interested in Everlane because of its reputation, its supply chain and its position as “almost the antithesis” of what Shein represents. The numbers for Shein’s own impact are not pretty. According to Reuters, citing Shein’s own 2024 sustainability report, the company’s transport emissions rose 13.7% in 2024 to 8.52 million metric tons of CO2e, more than three times the transport emissions reported by Zara owner Inditex. According to NielsenIQ, Shein launched 315,000 new items in 2022, compared with 6,850 for Zara and 4,400 for H&M. And according to Italy’s competition authority, AGCM, Shein’s sustainability messaging has also faced regulatory challenge: In 2025, the watchdog fined the company €1 million ($1.17 million) for misleading and omissive environmental claims. Shein says it is investing in logistics changes, renewable electricity and supplier solar capacity, but those efforts sit against a model built on low prices, rapid product testing and constant newness.

Everlane has disclosed supplier information, while Shein has faced criticism for not publicly listing even its first-tier suppliers. First-tier factories, Chua explained, are the cut-and-sew facilities that have direct relationships with brands, making disclosure there a baseline expectation.

Shein has been trying to improve its image, including releasing sustainability reports, making sustainability executive hires and giving the Or Foundation three years of funding for its textile-waste work in Ghana, amounting to $15 million, announced in June 2022. Chua said Shein’s funding has been meaningful for the organization’s cleanup and research work, even as the company’s broader scale and rising emissions remain difficult to square with sustainability claims.

But for Everlane, the risk is that the same brand equity Shein may be buying becomes harder to defend once the acquisition is complete. It would not be a stretch to say that the brand's ethos will disappear under its new ownership.

“Is Everlane going to influence Shein to do more of what the sustainability movement wants it to do?” Chua said on the podcast. “Or is Shein going to work its own pressures on Everlane?”

This week, the hype around the Swatch x Audemars Piguet "Royal Pop" watch built to a fever pitch. In the lead-up to the big reveal, watch collectors were already planning when they would start to line up at Swatch stores to secure the highly anticipated product.

But then the watch was fully revealed: not a wristwatch, but a pocket watch meant to be worn on a lanyard, clipped to a bag or snapped into a desk stand. The hype shifted.

Earlier this week, before the reveal, Robertino Altieri, founder and CEO of the watch marketplace WatchGuys, told Glossy that he suspected the hype would be subdued if the Royal Pop wasn't a classic wristwatch. After the reveal, Altieri joined the Glossy Podcast to talk about how the watch community is receiving the Royal Pop and what the collaboration says about the state of the watch industry.

As we've previously covered on Glossy, the Royal Pop seems to be following in the path of the mega-popular Swatch x Omega Moonswatch from 2022. Despite concerns that the Moonswatch would dilute the value of Omega, sales of Omega's flagship Speedmaster watch increased by 50% based on the popularity of the Moonswatch.

So will watch buyers take to the unorthodox new model? While diehard watch collectors may be scratching their head at the funky novelty of the Royal Pop, AP seems to be targeting a more casual consumer, someone who potentially has never owned an Audemars Piguet watch before, in a bid to expand its consumer base.

The last year has seen the U.S. labor market enter a challenging position. Layoffs at major companies like Amazon, Microsoft and Verizon have put more people out of work while costs of living are rising.

The fashion industry wasn't spared. Saks Global is laying off 16% of its workforce, and other major fashion brands, like H&M and Nike, have made staff cuts.

For people just entering the fashion industry, it's a daunting proposition. On this week's Glossy Podcast, senior fashion reporter Danny Parisi spoke with Keith Fraley, a professor of fashion business management, about the challenges facing new graduates and others seeking entry-level roles in the fashion industry.

One of the biggest changes Fraley has seen is that the training period for new employees is much shorter than it used to be.

"The businesses are expecting immediate contribution from their new hires," Fraley said. "And before you can contribute, you need to show that you know what the job entails, that you understand how the business makes money, because they want to see people making an impact in their role relatively quickly after they're hired."

Fraley has seen far more students who are interested in the creative side of the business, including design and product development, taking more business-oriented classes. That reflects a shift in the labor market, where more applicants are competing for fewer openings and need more ways to demonstrate their value and versatility.

One of the most pressing concerns in fashion employment is AI. A recent Vogue Busines survey of 300 current and aspiring fashion workers found that only 32% of students feel positive about the role that AI will play in their careers. Most believe that AI will further reduce the number of available jobs.

Fraley was more optimistic, while acknowledging the concern.

"Repetitive tasks, basic analysis might be automated," Fraley said. "But that will just increase demand for strategic thinking and creative interpretation. I don't think AI will replace many fashion roles, but it will certainly reshape them."

On the Glossy Podcast, senior fashion reporter Danny Parisi and editor-in-chief Jill Manoff break down some of the biggest fashion news of the week.

This week, that news is "The Devil Wears Prada 2," the newly released film that brings back Meryl Streep as the imperious fashion magazine editor Miranda Priestly. The first movie shaped popular conceptions of the fashion and media industries for the last two decades, and the new film examines a vastly changed fashion landscape in which print magazines are no longer dominant.

In this spoiler-filled episode, we talk about how the industry has changed in the 20 years since the original movie was released and examine what the movie says about the current state of fashion.

The Devil Wears Prada 2, unlike the first movie, which was notably sparse on appearances from real-life fashion personalities, is absolutely stuffed with cameos of both people and brands. Donatella Versace, the Cuccinelli sisters and Law Roach all appear, along with product placement from Tiffany and Valentino, and Dior is centrally important to the plot.

But do brands really benefit from their placement in the film? And will the movie's box-office success have a broader impact on the fashion industry as a whole? The episode answers these questions and more.

Kering's new CEO, Luca de Meo, laid out a sprawling plan to turn the company around. After several years of slow but notable sales declines, particularly at its crown jewel, Gucci, Kering needs a new strategy.

On the Glossy Podcast, senior fashion reporter Danny Parisi and international reporter Zofia Zwieglinska discuss what was wrong with Kering's previous strategy, what de Meo's new plan entails, and how likely it is to succeed.