Everlane is reportedly selling to Shein. The era of millennial optimism is officially over

FastCompany: Everlane—once an icon of ethical fashion—is reportedly being sold for $100 million to Shein, arguably the least ethical fashion brand on the market. Everlane had been on shaky financial ground for years, and majority owner L Catterton began shopping it around in March. But few expected it to sell to a Chinese retailer credibly accused of forced labor and labeled by Yale researchers as “the biggest polluter in fast fashion.” It’s the latest blow to a wave of ethical consumer brands that sprung up in the 2010s to court millennials.

Last month, Allbirds—the sustainable sneaker startup—sold off its footwear assets, abandoned its environmental mission, and pivoted to artificial intelligence . Two years ago, Beautycounter—built on ridding harmful ingredients from personal care products— shuttered without warning after its troubled acquisition by the Carlyle Group. (Founder Gregg Renfrew bought back the brand and has since relaunched as Counter .) These brands were born during the Obama years, when millennials were brimming with hope and convinced that progress was coming. Climate change felt like a problem that business, government, and consumers could solve together.

Workers’ rights, transparent supply chains, and cleaner materials appeared to be going mainstream. Now the reckoning has arrived in the middle of a second Trump administration that’s actively dismantling climate policy and DEI initiatives. For millennials, the death of these brands feels like a collapse of a belief system. These companies failed for many reasons. They stopped innovating, buckled under investor pressure, and landed with private equity firms looking to cut their losses. But for millennials who grew up with them, it’s deflating to watch an era of idealistic brands end in such humiliation.

The bigger worry is that it could discourage the next generation of founders and investors from seeing business as a force for good. The Mission Was Real Everlane is selling out, to use the words of Puck , which first broke this news. It’s tempting now to look back and wonder whether the company ever stood for something. As a reporter who covered Everlane in its early days, I don’t believe its focus on ethics was just marketing . Sure, founder Michael Preysman was a brilliant marketer. But he used his skills to draw attention to fashion’s environmental footprint and the lives of garment workers.

In 2019, I visited Everlane’s San Francisco headquarters to report on its ambitious goal of eradicating virgin plastic from its supply chain. The company practiced what it preached. Preysman proudly walked me through the office kitchen, stocked with food in minimal packaging. Kim Smith, then head of sustainability, explained how hard they worked to move garments through the supply chain without sealing each one in its own plastic bag to keep it clean. The Everlane team regularly visited factories and found ways to improve the quality of workers’ lives by buying motorcycle helmets and planting community gardens.

I had similar experiences with Allbirds, which was founded just a few blocks away from Everlane in 2015. In 2018, at a long table made of reclaimed wood that the founders had sanded themselves, I heard about their push to replace the plastic foam in sneakers with a polymer derived from sugarcane rather than fossil fuels—thereby slashing the shoes’ carbon footprint in the process. That same year, I traveled to Capitol Hill with a group of 100 Beautycounter saleswomen as they lobbied lawmakers to better regulate personal care products.

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The sale of Everlane to Shein signifies a major shift in brand strategy and consumer values, making it highly impactful and relevant for brand strategy professionals, while the concept of ethical consumerism is not entirely new, thus providing moderate novelty.