Disposable fashion: the invisible cost of ultra-fast fashion

BarcelonaAs soon as you click for the first time, you're greeted by a golden gift with a red bow. In a second, it explodes, giving way to a seductive message: "Special offers just for you. 60% off any order." The fine print clarifies that the promotion is only for new users and applies to select items. But once you're inside, the platform doesn't let up: percentages, coupons, free shipping... A constant barrage of brightly colored advertising promising fashion at prices you can't refuse.

For example, a fuchsia summer t-shirt with "batwing sleeves," which in the next six hours will go from €9.49 to €3.80. Or a golden oval-shaped stainless steel ring for just €1.15. Or a pair of fabric beach sandals that cost €5.95 and which the platform advertises with an image that seems suspiciously artificial intelligence-generated.

Thus begins the process ofultra fast fashion, the latest and most accelerated evolution of the fast fashion model, which has reached Europe primarily through Chinese companies like Shein and Temu. Its strategy is clear: constantly launch collections, generate urgency among consumers, and fuel impulse buying. Behind the lucrative discounts and seemingly endless product catalogs lies a sophisticated machine that analyzes viral trends in real time, produces at record speeds in factories in the Asian country, and floods the market with thousands of items every day. The underlying idea is not very different from that already introduced by its predecessors, textile giants like Inditex and H&M: that consuming fashion ceases to be a necessity or a moment reserved for a special occasion, becoming an almost automatic and thoughtless habit.

"Before, traditional brands worked with two campaigns and four collections: spring, summer, autumn and winter. With the sales they would get rid of the excess stock and then start again. But Zara turned it around and four collections were no longer enough, but they are going to make four collections. The customer would like to come back. This is where the model of fast fashion" explains fashion sector strategic consultant Pau Almar. Shein's emergence, he adds, goes "a step further" because these launches are now daily: "Every time you visit their website, they must have changed the cover with new products."

The Chinese company doesn't provide official data on the number of items it releases daily, but some estimates put the figure at around 2,000. The most optimistic sources claim it's even higher, around 5,000 or 10,000. "With Zara's model, it can take an average of two and a half months between designing, manufacturing, and shipping to the store. When you manufacture close to home, you can react quickly, but the product that comes from Asia must be brought here, and that's already 40 or 50 days longer," says the expert. However, Shein operates more nimbly, with a network of many small, non-mechanized workshops—mainly located in the Panyu district (in Guangzhou, southeast China), often known as the Shein Village—which meet their need for short runs. This also makes their supply chain much less traceable when it comes to pursuing compliance with labor rights, Almar points out.

Asked about one of the most controversial elements of its business model, Alessandra Bonito, Shein's spokesperson for Spain, Italy, and Portugal, assured ARA that all of its suppliers are required to sign and comply with a code of conduct, which is aligned with the principles of the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. "It establishes key requirements to ensure ethical labor practices, including the prohibition of any form of forced labor and child labor, and the restriction of unacceptable practices such as charging recruitment fees or requiring workers to submit official documents," the executive says. Even so, she admits that they cannot guarantee 100% compliance due to the complexity and length of the supply chain. Guangzhou, which were suppliers of the firmultra fast fashion Workers were working 75-hour weeks. "I work every day from 8 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. and I take one day off a month. I can't afford to take more time off because it costs me too much money," explained one employee. Another investigation by this human rights advocacy group published last year.

Who are these companies?

Shein—originally called Sheinside—was founded in 2008 in Nanjing, a Chinese megacity of 9 million people. Its founder is Chris Xu, an expert in marketing and search engine optimization tools who started selling only wedding dresses through a website. According to the magazine Forbes, the businessman now has a net worth of around $9.1 billion, is number 323 on the billionaires list, and is the 35th richest man in China. Xu's mastery of SEO and the secrets of Google Ads were key to the platform opening up its catalog and starting to attract an international audience.

The other big Chinese name associated withultra fast fashionTemu, the company that owns Temu, has a shorter history. It was first launched in the United States in 2022 and is owned by PDD Holdings (also known as Pinduoduo), an e-commerce conglomerate born in the Asian giant but registered in the Cayman Islands and with its tax headquarters in Ireland. Its co-CEOs are Lei Chen and Jiazhen Zhao. Temu's name comes from the English phrase Team up price down, which translated into Catalan means "we team up, we lower prices." This is a good summary of their strategy, which is based on collective purchasing to further reduce the cost of their products, which also reach areas such as technology and household items.

According to the Financial Times, Shein's sales rebounded 19% to exceed €32.5 billion in 2024, although in the same year its profits plummeted 40% to €855 million. Meanwhile, the owner of Temu (PDD Holdings), which does not break down the results of each of its businesses, obtained revenues of €46.1 billion, 59% more than the previous year; and its profits soared 87% to €13.1 billion. To put these figures in context, Inditex recorded a record profit of €5.866 billion in 2024, while H&M earned €1.01 billion.

"Their model [that of Shein and Temu] is the natural evolution," says Franc Carreras, marketing professor at the Esade business school. The world where trends were dictated solely by runways and fashion magazines no longer exists. Algorithms now track consumer demand in real time, following the trail we leave on social media. Platforms like Shein and Temu offer technology and immediacy at a more advanced level than their predecessors and a pace of new products never seen before, also a consequence of their logistical mastery: "They don't sell clothes, they sell dopamine."

Carreras explains how its foundations rely heavily on data analysis and relatively opaque artificial intelligence tools. "With this predictive capacity, they can predict what the consumer is going to buy before they even know," he adds. In exchange for low prices and convenience, what they lose is quality and sustainability. Furthermore, the model favors large companies that can operate with very narrow margins and scale quickly. "There's no room for the little guys here," opines the Esade academic.

Stuck on dopamine

Just as the Shein and Temu model is questioned due to working conditions and its impact on the environment, it also has consequences for the mental health of consumers. Professor and consumer behavior researcher Javier Garcés believes we have moved from rational consumption (going shopping because we need something) to consumption driven by emotion. "The key to impulsiveness is that you don't have that time to reflect. And in everything that has to do with physical appearance and clothing, this consumption is insatiable. If you're not hungry, you won't eat twice, but if you want, you can buy ten dresses," he reasons.

Dominica Díez is a clinical psychologist at the Althaia Foundation and a member of the working group on pathological gambling and other behavioral addictions of the Official College of Psychology of Catalonia. She confirms the increase in cases she sees related to compulsive online shopping. "The immediacy of being able to buy at any time of day makes a person more likely to respond to that impulse. It's different if they have to wait until they get home. Furthermore, the purchase is made alone, and platforms facilitate this type of anonymity," she explains.

This perverse cycle, says Díez, begins with an initial phase when you imagine the product and believe you want it. "The moment you see it, the nucleus accumbens is reinforced," she continues. This is the group of neurons involved in the reward circuit and is linked to addictions. "There's a spike in dopamine that we secrete at the idea of owning a certain item that can complete our image and that, at that moment, we experience as essential," says the therapist. This is the most exciting point in the process, but compulsive buying quickly gives way to feelings of guilt. In the most extreme cases, it's also when the person realizes they can't afford it financially and continues to push the envelope by taking out consumer loans.

"These apps use conditioning techniques similar to those used in online gambling," Díez points out. They often take the form of innocent games of chance or raffles for discounts, but they rely on intermittent reinforcement. "Every now and then you get a discount to get you to buy more, but not always. It's the equivalent of social media, which doesn't send you the same notifications every day. They also play a lot with the urgency of saying there's only one item left or setting a deadline by which the product will go up in price again," warns this psychologist specializing in addictions.

In addition,ultra fast fashion (just as he already did fast fashion) also fuels the idea that our identity can always be improved through more new products, which can increase aesthetic pressure and break the emotional bond we have with existing garments. Now, a trend can last only a week, and the perceived expiration date of fashion is shorter than ever. As fashion historian and ARA columnist Silvia Rosés recalls, the idea of seasons "is an invention from the late 19th century," which introduced planned obsolescence in this sector, but it has been increasingly perverted: "The death of a product is designed at the very moment of its design. If nothing stands out."

Rosés insists, however, that Shein or Temu would never have been born without the precedent set by Amancio Ortega with Inditex and that these applications have simply sophisticated what already existed. "Zara created that anxiety of buying in the moment because otherwise someone else will wear the sweater you like, and it also normalized copying by emerging designers," she points out. These new players from Asia have put a new spin on the model, allowing China to control the entire business chain, producing what it had previously produced for others. "We offshored production and took it there; now they've decided they don't need to manufacture for a non-Chinese brand if no one can beat them at it," he concludes.