Episode 261: I’m With The Brand (Everlane + Stickergate), part ten

So by now you know that my “real job,” the one that actually pays my bills is working as a financial, marketing, and product strategist for small businesses. And when I meet with a prospective client for the first time, I ask them “what’s keeping you up at night? What do you think is the biggest problem your business is facing right now?”

Because it is without a doubt a difficult time to be a small business owner.  Chaotic, foolish tariff policy. Rising prices for shipping and materials.  An uncertain economy.  And really challenging access to credit (aka money) for small businesses, particularly if they are owned by anyone other than an overconfident white cis man. 

But you know what like 90% of new clients say is the biggest obstacle they are facing?  

Instagram. 

Yes, you heard me right.  Instagram. Perhaps you are a small business owner yourself and you’re like, “you’re damn right it’s Instagram!”

From 2020 to 2022, just posting on Instagram every day pretty much guaranteed new customers and sales. Yes, it was a grind. Sure it felt unfair that small business owners had to add “content creation” to their list of daily tasks. But it worked. And it actually gave a lot of people an opportunity to start a small business in 2020 and 2021.

But in 2022, it all began to change.  I knew that it was only a matter of time until Instagram (aka Meta) realized that all of these people were making money off of their free platform. And they would certainly want a cut of it…even though, Instagram was making money off of the people who used the app for longer amounts of time because they were seeing content they enjoyed from small business owners.  Like trust me, Instagram was doing just fine. But they wanted a bigger piece of the pie.  So the algorithm changed.  And then it changed again. And again. And again.  And by 2024, if a business wanted to reach customers like it had in 2021, it had to give Meta money via ads.  Some businesses still got by without doing that, but in the last year, even those businesses are finally realizing that pay-to-play is the name of the Instagram game.  TikTok–who also seemed to give small businesses tons of free marketing exposure for  a few years–has been moving in a similar “give us your money or give up” kind of approach.  And of course it doesn’t help that both of these platforms have just completely enshittified the user experience over the past few years, that less people want to use these apps in the first place.  So there are less people to see the ads that businesses are paying for in hopes of getting customers.

Now of course, when I dig more deeply into the nuts and bolts of a new client’s business, we often discover that Instagram is NOT the biggest issue. And that’s usually good news because while we can’t fix Instagram, we can fix the other problems.  Furthermore, we can find other ways to meet customers and drive sales outside of social media.

For the rest of us we have never had to rely on instagram as a marketing tool, our feelings about the app are probably a lot different. When Instagram first launched, I was so excited about it.  I liked how everyone had to “make” something (ie, take a photo) in order to participate.  It actually felt like it might encourage people to be more creative, explore their visual side.  Of course, one could just passively participate in it by simply scrolling and liking, but in the early days, you didn’t see a lot of people creating finstas or using it to doomscroll. Everyone was sharing photos: of friends, of food, of sunsets (LA), of snowstorms (Portland), Halloween costumes, parties, pets, and silly inside jokes.  Over time, of course, Instagram changed into being very image driven, influencers took over, and ads multiplied.  It went from social to commercial pretty fast.

Looking back, I miss the camaraderie of it all. Making jokes in your friends’ comments sections, whole chains of hilarious back and forth.  The silliness of it all.  There was this mysterious gallon jug of orange drink that kept moving around to different spots in my neighborhood and I posted a new photo every time it moved.  #jugwatch became a source of endless amusement for me.  I haven’t laughed at something I’ve seen on instagram in a really, really long time.

Where I have laughed recently is Threads, Meta’s version of Twitter.  Now, this is not an endorsement of Threads. In fact, I always call it “The Place Where People Go To Be Their Worst Selves.” People are obnoxious, cruel, and/or just self promoting. The algorithm transparently feeds you rage bait.  It’s full of bots. And for all the reasons I never enjoyed/understood Twitter, Threads is not great.  But strangely Dustin and I have been having a lot of fun with it, in the way that only people with more than a decade of inside jokes can.

So, back in 1990, Guns N Roses covered Bob Dylan’s “Knockin on Heaven’s Door” for the soundtrack of the film Days of Thunder (I have never seen this movie, but I know it stars Tom Cruise and it’s about race cars). The cover was also included in GNR’s next album, Use Your Illusion II in 1991.  That’s where I heard it.  My best friend Laura Curley loved Pepperidge Farm Mint Milano cookies, eating french fries with mustard, and Guns N Roses.  So I heard it a lot!

Anyway, one day years ago, Dustin and I were driving around listening to the radio (we get a lot of joy from spinning around radio stations looking for something good. And on this particular day, we stopped searching when we heard the GNR cover of “Knockin on Heaven’s Door.” In this particular cover of the song, for 18 seconds, the music subsides and you hear the sound of a dialing phone and then a guy saying a bunch of nonsensical stuff.  This is in no way related to the original version of the song, once again written and performed by Bob Dylan.  I am very familiar with both versions of the song because while Laura Curley loved Guns N Roses, I had a similar passion for Bob Dylan (but also Nine Inch Nails).  Nowadays I think Bob Dylan is a misogynist and I haven’t listened to one of his albums in like decades at this point.

That said: I know Guns N Roses.  I know Bob Dylan.

So that day in the car, I turned to Dustin and said, “I just can’t believe Bob Dylan didn’t use the phone part when he covered this Guns N Roses song.” And we just laughed and laughed.  We still make that joke every time we hear either version of the song on the radio.

A couple of months ago, Dustin took the joke to Threads, posting “When Bob Dylan covered the GnR classic “knocking on heavens door” why didn’t he do the phone call part?”

And what ensued was 48 hours of laughing until I almost peed my pants as we watched responses roll in.  Some people got the joke and added other jokes.  But most people (sorry, most men) were irate, couldn’t believe how stupid Dustin was, etc.  And witnessing their outrage was hilarious.  

Anyway, maybe you had to be there. But sometimes social media can still be fun. 

That said, social media remains a marketing tool and a key element of emotional branding, despite how difficult Instagram has made it. And specifically, I have seen some businesses do well via Threads…but success on Threads means posting nearly hourly.  And there is still no guarantee.

I have joked before –on this very podcast– that all of the fast fashion brands should be sending an Edible Arrangement to Meta world headquarters every week as a thanks for the way Instagram helped drive clothing overconsumption with influencers, outfit of the day posts, the weird belief – that we all seemed to accept at once – that we couldn’t be seen on Instagram in the same outfit twice.  But in the late 2010s through the early 2020s, Instagram also helped a lot of small businesses emerge and find their customers.  Whether it was upcycling designers like Franklin Jay and Taylor Dorry,  jewelry makers like Blush Daisy, trinket sellers like The Peach Fuzz, and countless vintage and secondhand sellers. Even Etsy sellers in the late 2010s who specialized in pop culture merch (RBG, Golden Girls, Dolly, etc) got a lift from Instagram.

Threads has done that, too.  Less for clothing and jewelry (because it’s not a visual medium) and more for businesses that are more focused on a witty one liner. Specifically, sticker sellers.  Yes, there is an entire cottage industry of people selling “political” stickers (sometimes ripped right from the headlines), often printed at home, but sometimes mass produced. Some of them are drawing things themselves, others are licensing art from artists, and some are most definitely using AI and/or bought templates.

Regardless, people are selling stickers thanks to the following they built on Threads by posting nonstop all day long.  Half self promotional content, half witty one liners. One seller is currently adding “posting highly facetuned thirst trap photos” as another means of promotion. Seriously, that person edits themselves to look like Lindsay Lohan and people fall for it (and theoretically buy stickers). Genius. Don’t think that I haven’t thought “hmmm, if I were just a little bit hotter maybe more people would support my podcast.” 

Now, wayyyy back when Marc Gobe wrote Emotional Branding in the 00s, social media was just a baby.  He never envisioned that Facebook would sway an election. That influencers would become millionaires via Amazon affiliate links.  That social media as a whole would end print media because it would steal all the ad money.  And he certainly would not have guessed that by 2025, a Pew Research study would find that more than half of US adults get their news from social media.

But he did get one thing super right: that social media was a new way to sort of “bond” with customers by showing a brand’s personality and crafting content that would seem to imply an “inner life” to a brand.  And what if you could take it one step further by making it seem as if a brand had a day-to-day life with experiences that were sometimes great, but also sometimes super sad/scary/difficult?  For small business owners who are brave enough to share themselves on the internet to all kinds of strangers with a whole spectrum of intentions, it can be super easy (minus the part where you are vulnerable to strangers) to build an emotional relationship with customers, sharing your triumphs and tragedies.

Okay, but what if you were a small business owner (who by the way makes stickers) and you decided to share some disturbing/scary stuff that was happening to you? Would you be doing that to share your experience? Maybe help others be seen or raise awareness to an issue? Or perhaps to sell more stickers? Maybe all three?

It all began last November (in 2025), when one of the sticker brands of Threads received an unpleasant email from a woman named Michelle. The sticker brand in question was Rachel Doodles and More and the owner was named Rachel (shocking, I know). Now Rachel was no stranger to harassing emails and she often shared them with her followers.  Some of these emails claimed that her work was the focus of several prayer groups.  They claimed that she was also a hot topic in their group texts. 

It was actually kinda handy that she received so many negative messages because like I said earlier, the sticker hustle on Threads means posting kinda constantly, all day every day.  And these negative emails were always full of embarrassing typos and amusing cluelessness. And Rachel always had a cute clapback.  Appealing content TBH in an increasingly divided culture. These posts elicited an emotional response in the reader, who was more likely to follow the account and eventually place a sticker order.

Why was Rachel getting so much “hate email?” Well ostensibly it was because her stickers were so political. Which…eh…kinda I guess? I do realize that it’s really easy to offend MAGA people, but like, her stickers were things like “Science is real” and “Every part of you is welcome here.” Like, I’ve seen more “offensive” (heavy air quotes here) stuff from other artists. Her stuff was pretty benign, and to be honest, nothing I haven’t seen a gazillion times in the last 10 years.   And with the internet being full of artists selling political stickers, tees, prints, and more…in retrospect, it does seem kind of unlikely that Rachel was being targeted so often. Finding her stickers on the internet would be pretty difficult unless you followed her from Threads. And at the time these emails started, she only had a few hundred followers.  

But that said: online harassment is no fucking joke. And I say that as someone who has received death threats from vegans, rape threats from teenage boys on TikTok, and really withering DMs from the sewists of instagram. I have also had MAGA chodes say they plan to call CPS on me because as a nonbinary person, I’m probably grooming my child.  Obviously the joke’s on them because my kid is grown.  But still harassment is harassment and omfg the internet is full of it. It’s especially bad if you are anything other than a white cis male.  And of course any of us who have experienced it are super sympathetic toward anyone else who is living through it. Our natural instinct is to step up and protect the recipient of hate email.

So anyway, Rachel is getting these emails from Michelle, every few hours in the same day (November 4)  A total of 8 to be exact. And Rachel shares them all on Threads. At first, Michelle is outraged by the sentiments on Rachel’s stickers.  Then she is angry that Rachel shared her email publicly.  They become increasingly more absurd, as Michelle claims she is being harassed by leftists and she vows revenge. The final email of the day is in all caps: YOU RUINED CHRISTMAS I CAN’T EVEN GET THOSE STUPID BLANKETS BECAUSE OF YOU EVERYONE’S TALKING ABOUT THEM AND I CAN’T EVEN LOOK AT YOUR PAGE WITHOUT WANTING TO SCREAM.

(Rachel is selling these copyright infringement anime blankets).

With each email Rachel shares, she gets more and more followers. And she’s also getting more and more orders. In fact, she goes from 9000 followers to 50,000 in the span of 24 hours.  She claims that she has also received more than $10K in sales in one day, 200+ orders and 47 blanket preorders.  Her business has blown up so fast that she’s quickly buying another super fancy printer for stickers.  And she’s paying off debt from all the orders.

The next day, November 5, she receives another email from Michelle. This time Michelle says she is going to start her own sticker company just out of spite…and then she asks Rachel for advice about how to start her own business.

Now this is when what became known for highly online people as STICKERGATE began.

You see, Rachel of Rachel Doodles and More had a competitor, Lianna of Grumpy Greetings Co.  And Lianna felt very certain that there was something fishy about these emails.  At some point, she had exchanged phone numbers with Rachel. So she had an idea: some of the screenshots of Michelle’s emails included an AOL email address.  So Lianna went to the AOL email sign in page, entered the email address, then clicked “I forgot my password.” And as often happens when you need to reset a password, AOL said basically, “No problem, we’re going to send a verification text to this phone number.” Only the last four digits of the number were shown…and wouldn’t you know it…those were the last four digits of Rachel’s phone number.

So yes, Rachel was writing these emails herself, probably all along.

Now lots of drama ensued: 

• Rachel set her fans loose on Lianna, who basically lost her Threads account and had to start a new one.
• Rachel posted a tepid apology, not really taking accountability. And it’s messed up because once again, people deal with real and brutal harassment online and now she’s going to make it harder for those people to be taken seriously.  Then someone who claimed to be her husband posted another weird defense of her.
• At some point, two different assistants showed up to say different things.
• And after a few different renames/reappearances on Threads, Rachel now exists as “Doodles & Sketches” and I’m not sure if she’s on social media at all.

I’m going to share a link in the show notes to a much more detailed breakdown of this whole thing (written by a heroic Redditor, including screenshots).  So if you want to see more, go check that out.

What Rachel did is wrong. For sure.  Like I said, it makes it harder for anyone to speak up about their own experiences in the future.  

And yeah, ultimately it feels like she scammed a lot of people into buying stickers by lying.

But if we really get down to it, what she did is not that different than say Quince pretending to be a sustainable brand. Everlane saying it practices “radical transparency.” Nasty Gal portraying itself as some radical “girl boss” brand.  Or any of the countless other greenwashing/causewashing/feministwashing we’ve seen over the last decade.  And ultimately all of this “washing” is really just a hyper cynical, unethical form of emotional branding. 

In the 2000s, Marc Gobe encouraged brands to use social media to speak to their customers with hope and humor. And most of this “washing” (and Rachel’s hate email fraud) straddles both fear (shit’s scary out there/buy something) and hope (we can fix it/but only if you buy something).  Even Rachel’s “marketing” technique (seriously, let’s call it marketing because it really is) implied that there are scary people out there and we can protect good people from them by…buying stickers from Rachel.

In this installment of I’m with the brand, we’re going to use Everlane and its recent sale to SHEIN as an opportunity to unpack greenwashing and all the other “washing” as a form of late stage emotional branding.  And hopefully we’ll come out the other side of it less vulnerable to it and empowered to call it out for others. 

Welcome to Clotheshorse, the podcast that still can’t believe that the sticker world can be so dramatic.

I’m your host, Amanda and this is episode 261 part 10  in an ongoing series about brands and how they influence our identities and drive consumerism.  If you are new to the podcast or need a refresher because I took a little break from this series, go back and get started with part 1.

This particular installment of the series pairs really well with episode 160, where Malena of The Slow Era joined me to talk about operating a brand with values.  

Why? Because this week we are going to examine brands and their values: their true values and then their marketing values (yes, most big companies have both and you might be surprised by the lack of overlap between those two sets of values).  And specifically, we are going to use Everlane as a conduit for this discussion.  

• We will go all the way back to Everlane’s origin to identify what the brand’s values were from the beginning.
• I will give some additional context around SHEIN’s purchase of Everlane.
• I will debunk that myth that Everlane’s sale marks the “end” of sustainability in fashion.

And next week, I’m going to release a little minisode showing you how I “background check” the claims that brands make in an effort to avoid giving money to greenwashers and grifters.  It will tie in nicely to everything we’re talking about this week with Everlane.

Here’s the update on Operation Snip Snip.

One other announcement: If you’ve been missing hearing my voice lately, please check out the most recent two episodes of Miranda Bennett’s wonderful podcast, Creativity in the Time of Capitalism. I sat down with her for a long conversation about how I have had to overcome being a people pleaser in order to survive Clotheshorse life, how being a people pleaser made me a great corporate fast fashion employee, and the challenge (and subsequent empowerment) of separating financial success from creative satisfaction.  Also, I think you will love Miranda’s show!  You can find it on Substack and anywhere you listen to podcasts.  I will also link to it in the show notes!

Last month, an announcement launched a thousand think pieces and irate social media posts: SHEIN (aka the ultra fast fashion giant that is radically UN-transparent–it’s kinda how that whole business succeeds) was buying Everlane, the radically transparent, allegedly sustainable brand beloved by many.

Many, many people were shocked, even if they weren’t big fans of the brand.  And I am sure the Everlane employees were particularly shocked and shaken up, because while online publication Puck announced the sale on Sunday, May 17, it looks like employees weren’t told officially until the 22nd–five days later.  Imagine going into work all week wondering what the fuck was going on? It honestly reminds me of my final days at Nasty Gal, when I knew I was going to be laid off at any minute.  Each day I went to work wondering if it would be my last.

Now as I said in the last episode, I was not shocked by this whole thing at all.  I was suspecting that SHEIN would buy a “sustainable” brand this year, inspired by Quince’s success at selling to a slightly older customer who was willing to spend a little bit more money for greenwashed “sustainable” clothes. Put a pin in Quince because we’ll actually be doing some digging in to Quince in the next episode

I actually thought that SHEIN would buy Reformation.  Since 2019, Ref has been owned by the massive global private equity firm Permira.  

Permira owns so much stuff across just about every industry, from healthcare to technology to energy to pet stores to…a bunch of fashion brands, including Doc Martens, Golden Goose, Hugo Boss, and Reformation.

As we talked about back in the Joann episode, private equity firms are often looking for immediate return on their investment.  Sometimes they will sell off the company’s assets (like selling off all of Red Lobster’s real estate or selling Joann’s intellectual property to Michaels).  Other times they are looking to make a company more efficient (meaning: more profitable) so that they can sell it off at a higher price.  This usually means cutting costs by any means possible, often slashing jobs and enshittifying the product.

And we’ve seen that happen with Reformation. Quality has declined substantially (just ask the Reformation subreddit).  And I happen to have insider info that Ref has shifted its production overseas (previously it was producing here in the US, primarily in LA). That kind of move decreases costs substantially, and since Reformation has also been raising prices for customers at the same time, we know that Ref is (in theory) trying to maximize profits.  So I assumed that Premira was getting Ref ready to sell to someone, probably someone like SHEIN.  It could still happen TBH.  

In 2020, private equity firm L Catterton acquired a minority stake in Everlane.  One not-so-fun fact about L Catterton is that it is backed by LVMH (Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton), the world’s largest luxury goods conglomerate. 

LVMH owns SO MANY brands: obviously Louis Vuitton, but also Christian Dior, Celine, Fendi, Loewe, Givenchy, Marc Jacobs. Tiffany and several other luxury jewelry brands. Moet, Hennessy, Dom Perignon, and other luxury alcohol brands.  And also Sephora, Benefit, and other cosmetics companies.

The CEO and Chairman of LVMH is Bernard Arnault is a very good friend of Donald Trump and he was even at Trump’s inauguration. He has an estimated wealth of $190 billion, and yes, he is one of the wealthiest people in the world. 

I feel like I’m throwing a lot of names at you, so let’s recap where we are so far:

• The CEO of LVMH kinda sucks.
• LVMH is the backer of private equity firm L Catterton.
• And in 2020, L Catterton acquired a minority stake in Everlane. A “minority stake” means that L Catterton owned less than half of the company and it probably had little control over the day-to-day operations of Everlane.

So let’s talk about L Catterton a bit.  They have invested in SO MANY brands in just about every category.  Food brands like Goodles and Hungry Root.  Restaurants like Hopdaddy burger bar.  Cosmetics brands like Merit.  But also, resorts, healthcare, gyms, and boba tea chains.

They also own a majority stake in LOTS of brands you know.

Now, we already clarified that a minority stake doesn’t give an investor a lot of control over the company.  But a majority stake (more than 50% of a company) changes everything.  The individual/company/investment group that owns a majority stake can

• Dictate the company’s strategic direction
• Appoint or remove board members and executives
• Decide major changes like mergers, acquisitions, or sales of the company.

Basically: if L Catterton owns a majority stake in a company, they control that company.

So who is L Catterton controlling right now?

• A.P.C.
• Boll & Branch (they sell bedding)
• Ganni
• West Marine ( a boat company)
• Hanna Andersson
• Good Culture (they make cottage cheese)
• Multiple pet food and veterinary care companies
• Also, healthcare companies…disturbing how often that comes up.

So yeah, when you buy something from Ganni or even some fancy Good Culture cottage cheese, you are giving money to a company that ultimately benefits a Trump bestie who is also one of the richest people in the world.  That’s fun, isn’t it?

Well, in 2024 L Catterton acquired a majority stake in Everlane. So now when you bought something from Everlane, you were… giving money to a company that ultimately benefits a Trump bestie who is also one of the richest people in the world.   And now that the private equity firm was controlling the business, it began to pivot the company away from its “radical transparency” era (we’ll get into that later). Instead, L Catterton wanted Everlane to become a premium, more luxury adjacent brand, like Theory. Spoiler: it didn’t work.  And to make matters worse, Everlane was acquiring a lot of debt…about $90 million of it. 

Earlier this year, L Catterton was looking for an investor for Everlane, hoping to clear up that debt.  Most likely, all along L Catterton was hoping to just get rid of its majority stake. But only SHEIN showed up to buy it.  This reminds me so much of when Walmart bought Modcloth and Boohoo bought Nasty Gal. Both brands hoped to sell to someone more “premium,” but no one was biting because both brands had so much debt.

Now you have to ask yourself: by now we know that private equity is a bad thing for workers everywhere.  It’s a bad thing for customers, too.  I know everyone was like “OMG I can’t believe that Everlane–a supposedly ethical, sustainable company–would sell to SHEIN.”

But I’m more like…”why would Everlane–a supposedly ethical, sustainable company–take investment (and eventually be owned by) a private equity firm backed by a Trump bestie?

Maybe because being an ethical sustainable company was never the original goal? Because the founder’s values were elsewhere.

Everlane was founded in 2010 by Michael Preysman and Jesse Farmer as an online men’s clothing brand. The initial ethos of the brand was transparent PRICING. 

This little blurb from a 2013 Mashable piece called “You don’t have to pay a 7X markup for high quality fashion” really captures the Everlane value proposition:

A basic t-shirt costs $7.50 to make and could retail for $50 or $60 at a boutique. That math just didn’t add up for Michael Preysman.

“We decided to get into the industry online-only to cut out all the traditional costs of retail and bring that same beautiful shirt to market for $15 online,” says Preysman.

Years later, Preysman would tell CBS News, “The problem in apparel and many industries, is you have no concept of what value is. So you could buy a $10 t-shirt or a $100 t-shirt, and you don’t really know why.”

From the very beginning, Everlane would show customers the breakdown of an item: the cost to sew it, the fabric, etc. The idea was basically “affordable luxury.” Not so different from the branding of TJ Maxx.  Basically if you were buying from Everlane  you would consider yourself a savvy shopper who had discerning taste…just like a maxxinista!! 

So all that to say, Preysman and Farmer did not start the brand with a goal of creating a sustainable, ethical clothing brand. They wanted to make money and their gimmick would be pricing transparency. Farmer left the brand in 2012 to pivot into education.  And while I’m not saying that Preysman didn’t care about the planet or workers, it wasn’t the original goal of the company.  And when you don’t start from a specific set of values, it’s never going to be baked into your decisions. I used Campbell’s soup as an example in my conversation with Malena in the last episode.  If Campbell’s was launched with the goal of delicious, high quality food for all…well, the soup aisle would look (and taste) very different right now.  Instead it was like “here’s a way to make a lot of money selling canned food.”

Well, Everlane’s original “pricing transparency” was appealing to some, but it wasn’t exciting enough in the 2010s.  You have to remember that this was the era of “millennials will only buy from companies who stand for something.”  This was peak Toms “buy one give one.” This was girl boss and feminist tees and donating a portion of proceeds to someone somewhere that would give customers the feels.  Every brand had to have a mission statement.  

And furthermore: much like Threads is full of sticker sellers, the world is full of clothing brands. The competition is almost endless, which means every single clothing brand has to have a clear, dialed in, and powerful value proposition.  A reason to buy clothes from this brand versus the gazillion other brands selling clothing.

Price transparency just wasn’t enough.  So then Everlane pivoted slightly, to ostensibly total transparency: where something was made, how much it cost, and how much the customer was paying for that.  So not really total transparency….because, TBH that’s nearly impossible when you’re not manufacturing locally. 

The thing is? Millennials DID eat it up.  The brand acquired a very loyal segment of millennials who loved the brand and everything it stood for. They showed up for every new drop and bragged about it to friends. 

And I have to give to Everlane, I do think they really tried through the 2010s.  But by 2020, accusations of greenwashing were beginning to swirl around the sustainable fashion community.  The brand was using a lot of recycled synthetic fibers, which are pretty greenwash-y. The photos of factory workers that Everlane showed on their website only addressed the final part of production.  There was no conversation about fabric production, dyeing, printing, trims, etc. And these “pre-sewing” elements of the supply chain can often be the most negatively impactful part of the entire process.  And even as recently as 2024, Everlane could only account for living wages within 16% of its supply chain.  That felt super behind by then because other companies like Eileen Fisher and Nudie Jeans had begun mapping their supply chain all the way down to the farm where the cotton was grown.

In 2020, The New York Times published an explosive investigation of Everlane, called “Everlane’s Promise of ‘Radical Transparency’ Unravels.” I remember reading this back then and being like “oh yeah, this all adds up.” Because to be honest, nothing in it was dissimilar to my experiences working at other “mission based” brands like Nasty Gal and Wildfang.  Nothing about was exceptional for the fashion industry as a whole. The problem was that Everlane’s whole thing was that they were better, more honest than every other brand out there. 

I am going to share the link to this piece in the show notes because even six years later, it’s worth a read for any of you who feel perplexed or betrayed by Everlane’s sale to SHEIN.

Here are some of the major highlights (although we might call them low lights in this situation):

• The internal culture was hella racist.  Black models were often rejected for being “too severe” or not enough of a “traditional beauty” for the brand.  At the time of publishing, Black employees only made up 6% of the overall team of 264 employees. Earlier that year,  a collective of 14 anonymous employees  who called themselves “the Ex Wives Club” published a document calling out “anti-black behavior” (and lots of other shady shit) at Everlane. I have also linked to that in the show notes.

This story from the document was way too reminiscent of my times working at other toxic brands:

“I heard a table of people, including the CCO, Alexandra Spunt, and CEO, Michael Preysman, at a table discussing doing a future “all trans catalog” because “it’s trending” followed by really loud laughter”  Btw Alexandra Spunt comes up A LOT in the bad stories about Everlane.

• And then there was the culture of fatphobia. From the NYT piece:

For instance, Everlane was criticized for not providing extended sizing across its line and in stores, despite releasing ads with curvy models and saying for years that this was on their “road map.” But inside the company, the attitude toward plus-size shoppers was even more explicitly dismissive.

“It was not on the road map because it was not aspirational to be fat,” said a former employee, a web designer who had worked at Everlane since before it sold its first T-shirt. “Everything at the company at that time had to be aspirational.”

[Another employee] said that in 2012, she asked Mr. Preysman how she should respond to a male customer asking when Everlane would start carrying size XXL. Mr. Preysman suggested the man lose weight, she said. He told her there was no money in larger sizes. Everlane denied Mr. Preysman made this comment; another former employee recalled [that employee] telling her about the conversation at the time.

Customer service representatives said they received daily questions about plus sizes. Jon Foor (a member of the customer service team) said he was instructed to send an automated response, essentially saying the company was working on it and that the message would be forwarded to the appropriate department. But the messages weren’t forwarded, because that department didn’t exist, Mr. Foor said.

• Also, the company engaged in union busting, laying off 42 of its remote customer experience employees…right after they petitioned for unionization a few days earlier.

In that same NYT piece, the writers also called out that at the time, Everlane had been downgraded to “not good enough” by Good on You.  That’s really bad for a brand who says it’s radically transparent! Good on You found that Everlane had no initiatives in place to track greenhouse gas emissions, reduce water use, or guarantee living wages.  

The article wrapped up brutally with this:

“It’s a tech company that took the concept of fast fashion and made it an iota better — just one notch better — to try to appeal to a kind of San Francisco liberal consciousness,” Mr. Foor said.

“Everlane puts a great deal of focus on ‘radical transparency’ and has made it a key selling point,” said Luke Smitham, a sustainability expert at Kumi Consulting in London. “But fundamentally, what they do is not any different from most mass-market fashion brands who do exactly the same, or more.”

“They do some good work, but I wouldn’t describe it as radical. The most radical thing about Everlane is the marketing.”

Needless to say the New York Times piece was incredibly damaging to Everlane. Sales began to steadily decline and never recovered.  Internal restructuring led to Michael Preysman stepping down as CEO in 2021, which definitely had to happen because he looked REALLY bad in that article.

I want to take a timeout here for a second.  A few days after the news about SHEIN buying Everlane broke, friend of the pod (and Salon writer) Andi Zeisler reached out to talk to me about it.  And one thing that actually surprised us both…was that so many people were surprised by the sale!  After all, hadn’t we all learned who/what Everlane really was back in 2020.  Andi ended up writing a great piece about the whole thing called “Everlane was never your friend,” that I think you will really enjoy.  I’m going to link to it in the show notes.  And yes, I’m quoted in the piece.  One thing I said really sums up my thoughts on all of this:

“It’s a great case study of our relationships with brands. If you really wanted to know if Everlane was sustainable and ethical, all it would take is 15 seconds [on the] internet.”

That’s what was really shocking me about this whole thing.  Like, had that many people NEVER read or heard anything about the New York Times piece? Are people not checking out the brands they shop? Do we just believe what brands tell us? I suppose the answer to all of these is YES.  That’s why next week’s episode will be all about how you can do this kind of investigation yourself. And it’s actually pretty low effort!

But that’s the thing about emotional branding…even when someone or something shows up to poke holes in a brand’s image, it almost doesn’t matter because that deep connection is already created in our minds. It’s really difficult to break that connection. Even years later, if someone did one of those free association word exercises with us and said “Everlane,” we would probably say “sustainable brand.” Or “radical transparency.”  It’s almost like once a brand gets its vibes established, it doesn’t really have to maintain them.  They are already locked in.  I see that with a lot of brands that have been enshittified over the last few years.  It also reminds me of what I have seen happening with Selkie recently.

Okay, but back to Michael Preysman. At some point–probably in 2020– he sold his stake in Everlane to private equity company L Catterton.  Once again, if his values were really focused on ethical manufacturing and sustainability…well selling to a private equity firm backed by LVMH wasn’t a good choice. But if he was just looking to get rich, well then it was a great, amazing decision. Thanks to all kinds of rich person math, L Catterton was able to do a round of investment fundraising, taking that majority stake in the company. Preysman hung around for a while, but eventually left Everlane completely. And now he has an electrolyte startup called Magna. So, uh, good luck dude because there are approximately 9 gazillion electrolyte brands right now.

Back in 2020, before that New York Times piece, Everlane had a valuation of $550-600 million.  Investors–like L Catterton–assumed that this was just the beginning of an upward trajectory.  And so did the entire fashion industry. This made it really easy for Everlane to borrow money.  And by 2022, Everlane had taken on $90 million in debt.  

• $65 million of that was an asset based revolving credit facility: in other words, a line of credit that is secured by collateral like accounts receivable (any sales the company makes), inventory, or equipment.  This kind of financing is a lot easier to get than a bank loan for growing brands because they might have uneven cash flow (thanks to all that growth).  
• The remaining $25 million in debt was a loan from Gordon Brothers, a lender that specializes in distressed companies. Gordon Brothers seems to ONLY deal with sad situations.  Either liquidations or trying to restructure companies to save them from bankruptcy.  Over the years, it has liquidated Bed Bath & Beyond, Linens ‘n Things, Borders, Big Lots, Toys R Us, and more. When they are loaning you money, it means you REALLY need money.

The thing is, I think everyone who loaned Everlane money actually thought that they were just dealing with the pains and chaos of a growing company. With some financing, the brand would overcome these challenges. The problem? 2020 really was the peak of Everlane…and six years later, it still had $90 million in debt but was only doing $160 million in sales each year. That ratio of debt to sales is pretty scary. Furthermore, the Everlane was not profitable. So it wasn’t even making enough money to pay down that debt.

I stumbled across a conversation on Reddit about Everlane’s debt (on the Everlane subreddit). And some redditors were speculating that perhaps, PERHAPS…Everlane had all that debt from trying to do such a good job at being sustainable while offering affordable prices to its customers.  I want to be clear that is not the reason Everlane had debt.  Rather (and this is a classic trap that brought down both Nasty Gal and Modcloth, along with many other startups along the way), the company had been spending more money than it was making for years, all in the name of trying to get back that growth it had prior to 2020.  So it was spending a lot of money on marketing, advertising, and inventory.  Most likely it was paying more rent than it should have.  Hosting more events than it should have.  Gifting more product than it should have.  And so on. Basically the company (like many startups before and after it) was really leaning into “you have to spend money to make money” without actually doing the making money part. 

The 2020s as a whole were not good for Everlane.  First off, it never lived down that NYT piece.  Many customers never came back.  And advocates and activists within the sustainable fashion community were calling out Everlane’s greenwashing and “transparency” washing.  L Catterton seemed to know that Everlane would never become a sustainability darling ever again, so it leaned into this “affordable luxury” concept.  And sure, that strategy brought in some new customers.  But the original millennial customer base kinda drifted away, turned off by the NYT report or just bored with the brand.  

And also, what happened with Everlane is so reminiscent of why Nasty Gal failed 10 years ago:

• Higher prices turned off the core customer
• That core customer was never replaced with “high end” buyers.
• The brand continued to desperately try to entice new customers by dumping a ton of the investment money into advertising with Mega and Google. But every sale ended up being so expensive to make because each new customer cost hundreds of dollars to reach. The brand actually lost money every time a customer made their first purchase.

By March of this year, Everlane was looking for either someone to buy the company or invest enough money to pay down its debt. Things were so bad that  Everlane owed more than $90K in back rent for its San Francisco offices. Employees were being laid off.  Basically–Everlane was going to go out of business for good when SHEIN approached with an offer. It was essentially a fire sale.  The final price was $100 million.  A far cry from the company’s $600 million valuation in 2020.

But this is the risk you take when the values you promise the world you have are really just a marketing story, not at all reflective of what’s happening behind the scenes. 

Now since the sale, the internet has been full of think pieces asking IS THIS THE END OF SUSTAINABLE FASHION?! You can hear the hysterical tone of these headlines.

First and foremost: Everlane hasn’t been a “sustainable” brand for a long time. That hasn’t even been its brand strategy for years.  We just kind of heard it like ten years ago and we never followed up.  And prior to that NYT piece in 2020, Everlane really was an internet darling for its “radical transparency.” But it hasn’t been that Everlane for quite some time, if it ever was.

At the end of the day, no one becomes a billionaire from slow fashion or sustainability. That means that big private equity firms don’t want to invest in truly sustainable brands.  If you’re reading articles all over the internet about how “sustainable” a brand is or a brand pops up in ads on every podcast you listen to (except Clotheshorse), it’s a big ole bright red flag declaring THIS BRAND IS NOT WHAT IT SAYS IT IS.  Why? Because advertising and PR like that costs lots of money. Like more money than you can imagine.  And that kind of money means mega investment from firms and individuals who are looking for a big return on their investment. That’s just not possible from a truly sustainable brand, where profit margins can be high enough to care for employees and drive steady, slow growth…but not high enough to make anyone mega rich. 

I’m glad to see big “sustainable” brands take off their masks and reveal themselves as just another fast fashion brand with better marketing. It clears some space and creates clarity for the real slow fashion activists, brands, and small businesses that are out there doing the real work of sticking to their ethics

Because that’s the thing…slow fashion/sustainable fashion…whatever you want to call it…is out there and it’s definitely not dead or over.  But rather than it being one or two companies eating up all of the oxygen in the room, it’s thousands of small businesses working hard to do the right thing.  Some of my clients are apparel brands…and they work their asses off to care for the planet, their employees, and their customers.  Gravel + Gold. Nettle Studios. Deco Denim. Jenny Pennywood. The Endery. Degen. Nikki Chasin.  And other brands that I don’t work with but admire, like Nooworks. These are brands that only work with ethical/fair trade factories, often here in the US. They work hard to use the best materials and get the fit just right.  They want the best for everyone. And guess what? They struggle to get any money at all from banks, much less investors.  I think part of the problem is that all of these companies are women-owned (yeah, misogyny is alive and well in the financial world). But also: they can’t deliver the profit margin of fast fashion while ethically making high quality products and paying a living wage. So they do the best they can with their limited resources, which means they don’t do a ton of advertising.  And they certainly don’t have a PR team or work with celebrities.

They need us–the slow fashion community–to show up for them.  Boost their posts, tell our friends, buy one nice thing from them rather than four things from Quince.  They need us to stop writing thinkpieces about Everlane and start getting people excited about the slow fashion that is happening all around them.

Everlane was never going to be part of a better, more equitable world.  But all of these truly slow fashion brands ARE.  They are dreaming of the same future that we want and they are doing their best to work with us to get there.  For too long, we’ve all been looking for one big company or organization to lead us, to fix things for us…but in reality, the real fixers are all around us.  You, me, and this growing community of passionate people. Some of them make clothes. Some of them rescue clothes from the landfill.  Some of them teach us how to mend or do laundry better or just inspire us to show up and stand up. Everyone plays an important part in this. So no, sustainable fashion is not dead. It’s bigger and better than anyone could have ever imagined. And SHEIN would never want to buy what we are making because we are building the future…and SHEIN isn’t invited. But YOU are.  And so is everyone you know.  I can’t wait to see what happens next.