Day 14: All the Shein clothes I’ve worn for the last two weeks

6/13/2024

Day 14: All the Shein clothes I’ve worn for the last two weeks

It’s now two weeks since I started my 90 days of Shein challenge, intended to see how ultra fast fashion stands up to multiple washes and wears.

For new readers, I’ve selected a very small capsule of clothes, including underwear and nightwear to wear over the three summer months. I’m taking notes daily on what I wear and how the garments are holding up.

14 days in, I thought now would be a good time to summarise what I’ve worn so far and also answer some questions I’ve received over social media.

First up, what did I wear the most (and the least)

Most worn were the shoes and the nightdress, which both came in at 14 wears. I had only one pair of shoes and only one thing to wear at night, so that’s not surprising. I was lucky with the weather, which was mostly warm and dry enough that I could wash the nightdress and other clothes as needed.

Other well-worn garments included the trench coat, denim cargo pants and leggings.

And now for some answers to readers’ questions:

Did you buy all new clothes? Isn’t that adding to the problem of overconsumption?

Not all the clothes were new, but most were as it seemed that was the only way to really tell how the garments stood up to being worn and washed many times as I couldn’t be 100% certain how much wear thrifted pieces had before they came to me.

I bought seven new items of clothing, plus a pair of shoes, a nightdress, a backpack, five pairs of pants, two bras and four pairs of socks. I added a thrifted skirt, hoodie and trench coat.

I’m not planning to buy anything new (only thrifted for the rest of 2024 and 2025 to make up for all the new purchases.

Have you seen many signs of wear so far?

Some, such as a growing number of loose threads on the backpack and bobbling on the hoodie. Other clothes like the wide-leg denim trousers and the nightdress look as good as new.

Why Shein not one of the many other fast fashion brands?

Because Shein is simply so huge and so high-profile, and producing such an enormous volume of clothing

Did you really only wear Shein clothes for the last two weeks?

I have to admit I started before the leggings and bras had arrived, so had to wear my own bras before that. I also a couple of times grabbed one of my own sweaters to layer with when it turned cold in the evenings until I put the rest of my clothes out of site.

I also didn’t buy sportswear as I didn’t think I could justify buying an extra pair of trainers. So I wear the Shein leggings and t-shirts to run in but my own trainers.

Mostly I work from home, but occasionally I need formal businesswear for a work trip — in that case I’ll probably have to wear my own clothes as again it seems too wasteful to buy business clothes of Shein that I’ll probably only wear once or twice.