Shein opens a headquarters in Milan

It's 2022 when Shein establishes a strong connection with Italy: thousands of millennials gather in front of the entrance to the first Italian pop-up store, preparing to make in-store purchases of a myriad of affordable clothing, overcoming Shein's biggest obstacle in the shopping experience, namely online shopping. In the first months of its existence, buying online on the fast fashion giant's website was like taking a leap into the unknown: you didn't know when (or if) orders would reach their destination, yet it was a risk worth taking to snag an evening dress or a €5 bikini.

Today, about a year and a half after the installation of the contemporary store in Piazza Gae Aulenti, Shein opens a headquarters in Via Meravigli in Milan, demonstrating how the hub of Italian fashion is an important strategic point in the global vision for Peter-Pernot Day, Shein's head of strategy.

He exclusively told MF Fashion that "Italy, as the epicenter of fashion and design, is an indispensable source of inspiration for Shein. Italy is an important market on which we are investing. Europe as a whole is our second most significant market after the USA." In fact, in addition to the new headquarters in the center of the city, one of Shein's two Italian logistics hubs is located in Stradella (a Lombard municipality in Pavia). In the same interview, Peter-Pernot Day seized the opportunity to highlight another focal aspect of Shein's "colonization" of the international market, involving joint ventures and various collaborations with fast fashion brands such as Forever 21 and the recent acquisition of business rival Missguided. These partnerships ensure the brand founded by Chris Xu expands territorially, increasing its target audience: it is expected that by 2025, there will be 260 million consumers of the brand, a figure that any brand and market segment would envy, threatened by the exponential growth of ultra-fast fashion, led by Shein.

While Shein asserts itself as one of the most downloaded applications in Europe and the United States, continuing to withstand endless criticism, Peter-Pernot has also sought to counter greenwashing accusations: "We are working on a sustainability path that will take more time. Just last year, we quadrupled checks on our supply chain." Knowing the structure and business model of Shein, we can only confirm our skepticism regarding the introduction of sustainability-related initiatives; in Europe, fast fashion seems to be increasingly asserting itself, proving to be a giant difficult to defeat in the clothing sector.