Everlane and the Death of the "Good" Millennial Life-Style Brand

Everlane opened a brick-and-mortar store in Nolita in 2017, offering austere, brightly lit basics for men and women. The brand sold understated items such as white oxford shirts, flat-front chinos, and flesh-colored ballet flats at affordable prices. Everlane was founded in 2011 as part of the direct-to-consumer startup wave that aimed to replace department stores with thoughtfully designed everyday goods. Its clothing used high-quality materials and provided supply-chain transparency by naming Chinese factories. The brand’s efficiency and transparency did not guarantee lasting loyalty, and its office-wear focus declined during working-from-home trends. Fashion shifted toward flashier, logo-heavy styles, and Everlane was later acquired by Shein, an online fast-fashion retailer.

"In 2017, the clothing brand Everlane opened its first brick-and-mortar store in Nolita. Right down the block from the former location of the bookstore McNally Jackson, it was a beacon of retail at the time, austere, brightly lit, and installed with shelving that brought to mind a gym locker room at an upscale hotel. It stocked blandly tasteful basics, both men's and women's, that promised something like a middle-class millennial American dream: You, too, could wear a white oxford shirt, flat-front chinos, and flesh-colored ballet flats; commute to an office job that mainly consisted of sending e-mails and looking at the internet; and get a craft cocktail at happy hour for ten dollars without having to go home and change."

"Everlane was founded in 2011, a paragon of the direct-to-consumer startup wave that saw dozens of well-funded, instantly omnipresent retailers popping up to sell thoughtfully designed toothbrushes, kitchenware, suitcases, and any other mundane accessory that people once would have bought at a department store. The establishment of an Everlane store seemed to represent a triumphant moment for the company's understated, aspirational vision. The brand's logo did not appear obviously on its clothes; the designs were resolutely uninteresting, even ignorable. Yet the materials were high-quality, the prices were affordable, and labels informed customers which Chinese factories made up its supply chain."

"Everlane's hallmarks were efficiency and transparency-admirable qualities, though they didn't necessarily inspire long-term loyalty or enthusiasm. Anodyne office wear became less relevant in the era of working from home; it fell to the wayside after the pandemic, as fashion trends veered flashier and logo-heavy. Last week, Everlane was subsumed by the Death Star of online fast-fashion retailers, the Chinese c"

Read at The New Yorker