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Fast-fashion Giant Shein Wants to Sell Skincare, Toothpaste

FILE PHOTO: A view of a Shein pop-up store at a mall in Singapore April 4, 2024. REUTERS/Edgar Su/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A view of a Shein pop-up store at a mall in Singapore April 4, 2024. REUTERS/Edgar Su/File Photo
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Fast-fashion Giant Shein Wants to Sell Skincare, Toothpaste

FILE PHOTO: A view of a Shein pop-up store at a mall in Singapore April 4, 2024. REUTERS/Edgar Su/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A view of a Shein pop-up store at a mall in Singapore April 4, 2024. REUTERS/Edgar Su/File Photo

Online fast-fashion retailer Shein is courting brands like toothpaste conglomerate Colgate-Palmolive and toymaker Hasbro as it tries to sell more household names on its platform, Reuters reported.
Known for cheap own-brand clothing and accessories, Shein is moving into other categories and has given brands and retailers access to its platform in nine European countries so far, having done so in the United States, Brazil, and Mexico last year.
The strategy, part of Shein's plan to build credibility and better compete with Amazon, is enabling the business to expand and develop new ways of selling goods ahead of a planned stock market listing later this year.
Shein presented its marketplace services at an event in Madrid last month alongside Colgate-Palmolive, Hasbro , Orangina maker Suntory Beverage & Food, and Spanish cosmetics brand Bella Aurora.
"Everybody associates Shein with fashion, but we are doing all verticals," Christina Fontana, senior director of brand operations for Europe, Middle East and Africa at Shein, told delegates at a conference in Paris on April 17.
Seeing shoppers opening Shein and searching for other brands provided the impetus, Fontana said.
"Our consumers want brands, if that's what they're looking for, that's what we're going to give them."
Fontana, who previously worked for AliBaba, is one of several marketplace experts Shein has poached from the Chinese e-commerce giant and other firms.
That recruitment has helped fuel rapid expansion. Shein had an average 108 million monthly active users in European Union member states in the six months to Jan. 31.
But the company's growth has brought new complications, including new EU rules requiring it to police its platform for illegal or harmful products.
In Europe, Shein's marketplace is so far available in Britain, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden.
Whether the new marketplaces succeed and enable Shein to compete with Amazon and AliExpress will depend on what brands the company can attract, experts say.
"If Shein wants to compete as a trustworthy reputable marketplace platform, it really needs endorsement from well-known Western brands," said Xiaofeng Wang, e-commerce analyst at Forrester in Singapore.
SUPERCHARGE SALES
In a Zoom webinar aimed at potential sellers in the United States on Thursday, Shein's head of seller marketing Claire Lin pitched an opportunity for brands to reach millions of shoppers and "supercharge" sales, Reuters said.
"Our shopping experience is very sticky, it's very much gamified," she said. "It's fun to shop on our site, so what we see is the minimum shopping time is around eight minutes, well above industry average."
Shein shoppers are Gen Z and millennial, and skew female - with around an 80-20 split of women versus men, Lin said.
Home, electronics, and beauty & health are currently top-performing categories, she said, and the only category Shein does not offer is food and beverages.
The gross merchandise value (total value of products sold) in the home category tripled in 2023, while electronics grew by 2.5 times, and beauty & health grew by 2.1 times, according to a slide shown during the webinar.
Selling directly through a marketplace can provide a significant sales boost for brands. But before doing so, manufacturers typically seek assurances that the marketplace is a good fit for the audience they want to reach, and that they will have control over pricing and promotions.
Shein's platforms have attracted many third-party retailers.
Products from beauty and skincare brands like Caudalie, CeraVe, La Roche-Posay, Shiseido, The Ordinary, Rimmel, and Weleda are currently being sold on Shein's platform in the US, Britain, Brazil, and Mexico via third-party retailers.
Jayn Sterland, UK & Ireland country manager at Weleda, said the Swiss cosmetics brand was not considering selling on Shein directly.
When assessing a marketplace, reputation, perception, and environmental impact are among the key factors the brand looks at, Sterland added, pointing to sustainability initiatives Weleda works on with Amazon, where it sells directly.
Colgate-Palmolive did not reply to a request for comment. A Hasbro spokesperson said the company participated in the Madrid event "to talk generally about the pros and cons of marketplaces".
A Suntory spokesperson said: "We don't sell any of our drinks on Shein's marketplace and we don't have any plans to, this was just an opportunity to share best practice."

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Fashion

Ferragamo Expands Leather Mapping Efforts as EU Sustainability Rules Take Shape

James Ferragamo, a chief product officer for the Salvatore Ferragamo group, talks with journalists during an interview with the Associated Press, in Milan, Italy, Wednesday, April 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)
James Ferragamo, a chief product officer for the Salvatore Ferragamo group, talks with journalists during an interview with the Associated Press, in Milan, Italy, Wednesday, April 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)
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Ferragamo Expands Leather Mapping Efforts as EU Sustainability Rules Take Shape

James Ferragamo, a chief product officer for the Salvatore Ferragamo group, talks with journalists during an interview with the Associated Press, in Milan, Italy, Wednesday, April 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)
James Ferragamo, a chief product officer for the Salvatore Ferragamo group, talks with journalists during an interview with the Associated Press, in Milan, Italy, Wednesday, April 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)

Italian luxury brand Ferragamo said it can map the country of origin for much of the leather used to make its coveted footwear and handbags, a first step in traceability according to experts.

The announcement comes during a wave of European Union sustainability rules that are increasing pressure on fashion brands to account for materials in their supply chains.

The family-run and publicly traded fashion house has been issuing sustainability reports for over a decade, but the 2025 report released March 31 is the first that contains figures on material traceability — notably for leather, which experts say is harder to trace than textile fibers such as cotton.

“We have been using leather in a more sustainable way,’’ James Ferragamo, the brand’s chief product officer and grandson of founder Salvatore Ferragamo, told The Associated Press in an interview last week. “I think it is one of the more sustainable materials in my point of view.”

Most of the tanneries working with the brand “control their water, have fair treatment of the workforce, monitor their supply chain ensuring that they’re buying leather from those who are not deforesting, and taking the right approach also in terms of breeding and animal welfare,” he said.

Traceability in fashion sustainability Traceability of materials is considered a first and necessary step for the fashion industry, which is facing a new EU framework that will require brands and their suppliers to ensure the items they produce are sustainable from the drawing board to end-of-life disposal. Precise terms are still being defined and compliance will be phased in over the coming years.

“Traceability is an essential factor, but it’s not sufficient,’’ said Francesca Romana Rinaldi, a sustainability expert and director of the Monitor for Circular Fashion at SDA Bocconi School of Management. “It enables the implementation of sustainability and circularity.”

She said that any company that is not tracing their materials “doesn’t know their supply chain” and “could be also criticized for greenwashing.”

EU regulations and directives are moving toward full circularity of materials to include measures extending the life cycle of garments, accessories and footwear through repairs and end-of-life management, including recycling and upcycling, she said.

The EU is also phasing in restrictions on destroying unsold apparel, accessories and footwear produced by companies with more than 250 employees and more than 40 million euros ($46.8 million) in annual revenues.

From breeding to assembly The family-run fashion house was founded in 1927 by Salvatore Ferragamo in Florence, after his return from Hollywood, where he had established himself as shoemaker to the stars with clients including Marilyn Monroe and Judy Garland. Material scarcity during World War II pushed Ferragamo to experiment with alternatives, substituting wicker for leather and using cork for soles, the younger Ferragamo said.

In keeping with its origins, Ferragamo remains primarily a footwear and leather goods maker. Together, they comprised 86% of 2025 sales of 976.5 million euros ($1.1 billion).

Ferragamo launched its initiative on leather traceability with the calf leather used for its Fiamma bag, tracing it from breeding to assembly, the group announced in its 2024 annual report.

In 2025, Ferragamo enlisted tanneries supplying 80% of the hides it buys in a project to identify the country of origin of raw materials through supplier declarations. When including textiles such as cotton, silk and nylon, the company says 81% of its materials are certified under third-party sustainability standards.

“Today there is not one single solution, one single technological solution to trace the leather to the birth farm of the cows,’’ said Davide Triacca, Ferragamo’s sustainability director. “We got to that result through a very dedicated and consistent approach and today we are able to trace more than 80% of the entire leather that we supply and the vast majority of which comes from Europe.”

The EU does not require leather to be traceable. Sustainability experts underscore that approaches based on country-level mapping and supplier declarations do not establish a full chain of custody and instead reflect an early stage of traceability.

Ferragamo previously included a capsule collection with silky textiles made from orange fibers in 2017, one of its first research investments. More recently it used nylon from castor oil instead of fossil oil for a men’s tote bag, and its Back to Earth collection featured the brand’s trademark Hug handbag treated with vegetable dyes.

“Research keeps on going. It’s something that we’re doing all the time,'' Ferragamo said.

“We’re trying to find different ways of creating different materials. And sometimes the materials that we produce are not ready for market. But it doesn’t mean that we don’t experiment.”

Fashion

Adidas Shares Pop After Beating Nike to Sub-Two-Hour Marathon Milestone

Athletics - London Marathon - London, Britain - April 26, 2026 Kenya's Sabastian Sawe celebrates with an Adidas Adizero Adios Pro Evo 3 shoe after winning the men's elite race and setting a new world record with a time of 01:59:30 (Reuters)
Athletics - London Marathon - London, Britain - April 26, 2026 Kenya's Sabastian Sawe celebrates with an Adidas Adizero Adios Pro Evo 3 shoe after winning the men's elite race and setting a new world record with a time of 01:59:30 (Reuters)
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Adidas Shares Pop After Beating Nike to Sub-Two-Hour Marathon Milestone

Athletics - London Marathon - London, Britain - April 26, 2026 Kenya's Sabastian Sawe celebrates with an Adidas Adizero Adios Pro Evo 3 shoe after winning the men's elite race and setting a new world record with a time of 01:59:30 (Reuters)
Athletics - London Marathon - London, Britain - April 26, 2026 Kenya's Sabastian Sawe celebrates with an Adidas Adizero Adios Pro Evo 3 shoe after winning the men's elite race and setting a new world record with a time of 01:59:30 (Reuters)

German sportswear maker Adidas' shares rose on Monday after Kenya's Sabastian Sawe became the first person to run a marathon in under two hours in an official race, accomplishing his feat wearing the brand's Adizero Adios Pro Evo 3 trainers. 

Sawe shattered one of athletics' most elusive barriers on Sunday as he stormed to victory at the London Marathon in one hour 59 minutes and 30 seconds. The sub-two-hour marathon has been one of sport's biggest goals for years. 

After the race, Sawe held up his $500 Adizero Adios Pro Evo 3 trainer with "WR" and "sub-2" written on it in black marker pen. He ‌beat the previous ‌world record of 2:00:35 set at the Chicago ‌Marathon ⁠in October 2023 ⁠by the late Kelvin Kiptum. 

The win is a boost for Adidas against arch-rival Nike , after years of lab-backed experiments and near-misses looking to build a so-called "supershoe" to break the record. 

Nike's Breaking2 attempt at Monza in 2017 just fell short though Kenyan great Eliud Kipchoge ran under two hours in INEOS's 1:59 Challenge two years later. Yet those efforts fell outside the sport's official ⁠record books. 

Ethiopia's Yomif Kejelcha finished second in his marathon ‌debut and Tigst Assefa broke her own ‌women-only world record. All three were wearing Adidas' Adizero Adios Pro Evo 3 ‌trainers, which are set to go on sale on Thursday. 

Using innovative foam ‌and carbon-plated soles, and ultra-light components, the Adizero Adios Pro Evo 3 weighs an average 97 grams, 30% less than its predecessor, and improves running economy by 1.6%, Adidas said. 

"The Adidas family is incredibly proud of Sabastian and Tigist's historic ‌achievements," Patrick Nava, general manager at Adidas Running, said in a statement. 

"This is a testament to the years ⁠of hard work ⁠and dedication the have made, alongside our innovation team". 

Adidas shares were up 2% in mid-morning although they are down 18% since the start of this year on concerns about the group's exposure to US tariffs and the impact of the conflict in the Middle East. 

Adidas released its Adizero Adios Pro Evo 1 trainers in late 2023, after Assefa set a new women's marathon world record while wearing them at the women's Berlin Marathon. 

The third iteration of the shoe will be released for $500 a pair exclusively via the Adidas app, with a wider release in the autumn marathon season, according to the company's website, but the steep price tag puts them out of reach of most runners. 

Fashion

'The Devil Wears Prada 2' Puts Spotlight on Italy's Fashion Capital

An installation of the new movie 'Devil Wears Prada 2' is displayed at La Rinascente shopping center, in Milan, Italy, Monday, April 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)
An installation of the new movie 'Devil Wears Prada 2' is displayed at La Rinascente shopping center, in Milan, Italy, Monday, April 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)
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'The Devil Wears Prada 2' Puts Spotlight on Italy's Fashion Capital

An installation of the new movie 'Devil Wears Prada 2' is displayed at La Rinascente shopping center, in Milan, Italy, Monday, April 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)
An installation of the new movie 'Devil Wears Prada 2' is displayed at La Rinascente shopping center, in Milan, Italy, Monday, April 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

Prada may have a title role in “The Devil Wears Prada 2,” which premieres in Italy’s fashion capital on Thursday, but fashion at large gets a spotlight and Milan a supporting role.

The film evokes Prada without being about the storied fashion house that has become synonymous with Milan. In homage, Meryl Streep and Anna Wintour both wear Prada on a current Vogue cover celebrating the film about a demanding fashion editor.

But when part of the movie was shot in Milan during fashion week last September, a Dolce & Gabbana runway show, not Prada, was the backdrop for a scene featuring Streep and Stanley Tucci.

‘’When you think of Prada, when you think of the Prada brand, you also think of Milan. This is obviously good for the fashion system,’’ said Tommaso Sacchi, Milan’s counselor for culture. “It’s a film that is good for the city.’’

That enthusiasm is spilling over to a pop-up at Milan’s main department store, where aficionados of the film and fashionistas have flocked to take selfies at a replica of fictitious fashion editor Miranda Priestly’s desk and against the backdrop of a faux Runway magazine mock-up cover.

VIPs attending the film's Italian premiere on Thursday, ahead of its global release next week, will attend a cocktail in the space.

The Rinascente CEO, Mariella Elia, said the response to the pop-up — which is announced by giant statues of the iconic red pumps outside the store — shows that people have “a desire for lightness.”

“It’s not just about buying, it’s really about reviving what fashion represents ... a desire to have a stylish flair once again, a desire for joy, too — perhaps in contrast with the current economic and international moment that humanity is experiencing,’’ The Associated Press quoted Elia as saying.

On a recent day, the space filled with people browsing limited edition T-shirts with famous phrases from the first film like, “Is there some reason my coffee isn’t here?”

Valentina Cattivelli, a professor, said she wasn’t trying to channel Priestly as she sat behind the replica of her desk. It included an inbox full of other lines from the original film, including Priestly's dismissive, “That’s all.’’

“No, I’m not so cruel in my daily life, but I appreciate her professional style and also her fashion and the taste for fashion. But not her sarcasm or cruelty, no,” Cattivelli said.

The Prada brand was founded a few steps away, in the stately Vittorio Emanuele II Gallery, by Miuccia Prada’s grandfather.

The shopping arcade today is anchored by two Prada flagship stores.

Miuccia Prada transformed the brand into a fashion juggernaut, turning the infamous ugly chic aesthetic into must-have or must-emulate looks and accessories that bring intellectual heft to runway fashion — a theme of the original movie, which offered a peek beyond fashion-world frivolity.

“There is a close relationship between the ‘Devil Wears Prada’ franchise and Prada, because by evoking Prada from the very title, it evokes a fashion that makes you dream, a fashion that makes you feel elegant, a fashion that makes you feel good, a fashion that gives you an allure,’’ said Annarita Briganti, a fashion journalist who wrote a book about Prada for Rizzoli’s Made in Italy editions.