“You’re not wearing that, are you?” sighed my wife, Liz.
We were heading out to a party and I was wearing my standard uniform: boots, jeans, and the next clean T-shirt that was in my cupboard that morning …
… which just so happened to be a free promotional T-shirt from my hairdresser, with a big ‘Lucky’s Barber Shop Woodend’ logo (and shop address) on the front and back.
“Please don’t wear that shirt … it confuses people … they think you’re a hairdresser”, Liz pleaded.
It’s true – more than a few times when wearing this shirt, random people have struck up a conversation with me about hairdressing. Most of the time I correct them, but every now and again I just roll with it.
I’ll theatrically cock my head to the side, study their face intensely, and say something like:
“I love what you’ve done with your fringe, it totally frames your face!”
Liz stood in the hallway shaking her head, resigned to the fact that the man she married is not only a bogan – but a cheap bogan.
At the party, a sharply dressed fashionable DIK (Dad I Know) told me he got his shirt on “Shein, for like ten bucks”. Everyone in the circle nodded knowingly, but I just stared at him blankly.
“Is that a shop?”
Yes it is, I discovered.
Though it turns out Shein is more like the meth-addicted brother of retail giant Zara.
You see, Zara changed clothes retailing in the 90s forever when it created ‘fast fashion’:
They take photos at fashion runway shows in Paris, send them to their factories in Spain, and have cheap knock-offs made, shipped and on their shelves within 15 days.
These clothes may be cheap but they’re profitable as hell – the Ortega family, which started the business, is now stupidly rich – as in $120 billion rich.
Now comes Chinese brand Shein, which has put fast fashion into hyperspeed:
Zara reportedly adds around 2,000 new styles every month.
Shein adds 6,000 new styles every day.
As a result, Shein is now certifiably huge – the world’s largest clothes retailer – bigger than H&M, Nike, Adidas and even Amazon. Its pop-up shops in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane have caused fans to go into a meltdown as they claw each other for $3 T-shirts, $5 skirts and $10 jeans.
Yet if $10 jeans are too expensive … how about $7 jeans?
Well,, this is where things get really weird.
You can find them on another Chinese mega-shopping app called Temu – which is the hottest thing in shopping right now. Along with clothes, Temu sells all the junk you’d find at a flea market.
If Shein is a meth-addicted version of Zara, Temu is the magic-mushroom-munching half-sister of the lot of them. Its catchcry is “shop like a billionaire”.
Yeah, nah.
I can’t really picture James Packer buying a men’s two-piece suit ($46.70 – Valentine’s Day special!), or a pooping dog butt toothpaste dispenser ($2.36), or 12 pairs of comfy ankle socks ($2.96).
Though I could see him investing in it.
After all, Temu has (astonishingly) quickly become one of the most popular apps in Australia. It’s reported that it had over nine million registered Australian users just two months after it launched, largely driven by millennials attracted to an app that gamifies shopping.
But hold your hashtags!
Fact is, if you can get a pair of jeans delivered to your door for $7, someone is getting trousered.
Like the environment. Like the poor bastards in sweatshops. And like the Australian retailers – Kmart, Big W and your local haberdashery – whose business models are being turned upside down.
Still, thankfully there will always be a need for a hairdresser. Then again, you can buy a four-piece salon professional barber hairdressing kit on Temu for just … $2.46.
Snip, snip!
Tread Your Own Path!