In recent years, fast fashion, led by giants like SHEIN, has dominated the womenswear market. It’s particularly captivating for younger generations, who can experience trend-setting designs at remarkably low prices. The very essence of fast fashion demands a rapid-response supply chain, spanning from design and production to sales and operations. Every link in this chain is crucial.
Click onto any fast fashion website, and you’re greeted by a dazzling, seemingly endless catalog, often spanning dozens of pages. This vast selection ensures that consumers can almost always find a style that speaks to them and make a purchase. With chic product photos, affordable price tags, and efficient logistics, the consumer experience feels perpetually satisfying.
As a player in this ecosystem, we YISWIM have firsthand experience. We once operated as a source manufacturer for SHEIN, producing women’s swimwear, which gave us a unique insight into the mechanics of this agile supply chain model. From our perspective, the SHEIN model transfers immense pressure onto the production side.
During the initial “product testing” phase, manufacturers are required to produce very small batches of each new style. This minimizes losses if a design fails to resonate with consumers. However, when a product takes off, the responsible factory must ramp up production to massive volumes in an incredibly short timeframe. This often means round-the-clock work.
Furthermore, suppliers are under constant pressure to develop and submit a continuous stream of new designs to the platform. If a manufacturer fails to meet these demanding quotas, they risk being dropped from the platform. Consequently, the vast majority of styles on platforms like SHEIN originate not from the platform itself, but from the designers at these factories. The platform, in essence, acts more as a sales and logistics hub, receiving designs and finished goods from factories and marketing them to the end consumer. We believe this model may not be sustainable in the long run — a fact underscored by SHEIN’s gradual shift towards an OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) model.
But is this the ultimate model for fashion? It’s a question we, the decision-makers at YISWIM, often ponder.
At its core, what consumers want is simple: to find products they truly love. Yet, within a massive and diverse consumer base, tastes are bound to differ — as the saying goes, “there are a thousand Hamlets in a thousand people’s eyes.” Fast fashion’s solution is to churn out a relentless flood of new styles. This solves part of the problem, but not all of it.
This led us to wonder: what if the future of fashion isn’t B2C (Business-to-Consumer), but a gradual shift towards C2C (Consumer-to-Consumer)? In this model, the designs would come from the consumers themselves.
Imagine leveraging today’s rapidly advancing AI technology to create visual customization tools. Consumers could design their own perfect garment from a pool of existing styles and design elements, much like playing a virtual dress-up game. They could then publish their creations to a community to see if they resonate with others. Once a design garners enough interest—hitting a certain threshold of supporters—it could be sent directly to a manufacturer for production.
In this scenario, consumers interface directly with manufacturers. The consumer takes ownership of the design, while the factory remains responsible for production quality. This balances the pressure between the design and production ends of the spectrum, easing the burden on manufacturers and completing the shift to a true C2C model.
How will the design and production models of the fashion industry evolve? At YISWIM, we’re excited to find out and be part of that future. Stay tuned.