My collaboration with Shein

For those who are not familiar, Shein is a fashion brand known for fast fashion — they turn over their inventory quickly depending upon the season. Shein caters to a trendy, younger demographic (I am NOT their target market) but thankfully, their art directors liked my work.

I was able to make a connection with the design coordinator at Shein through a presentation made in a membership I’m a part of called Multi Colored Minds. The artist, Laramie “Xhico” Garcia, who runs the membership program brought in the design coordinator as a guest speaker. Xhico licensed some of his designs last year to Shein and they are actively recruiting new artists through their Emerging Designer program. Everyone who saw the presentation was invited to submit their portfolio. The design coordinator passed my portfolio onto the art directors. Once my portfolio was reviewed I was thankfully invited to sign up for an account in their portal and uploaded my designs.

I uploaded over 30 designs. Some were marked “not in season,” some were not “commercially viable” and some were too similar to what they already had. I sold 3 pattern designs that are non-exclusive. This means I can keep selling these patterns to other manufacturers or licensees. It remains to be seen how Shein will use each pattern. I can’t wait to see if they end up on dress, blouse, swimsuit…who knows? I’ll report back when I find out. I hope to be able to design more for Shein and other apparel companies in the future!