Plug in to Shein: inside the brand incubator that made one label £100m in a year

Cosmina autumn/winter 2025

Imagine launching a fashion brand and immediately being able to plug into the infrastructure of a global mega-business, bypassing many of the challenges that can impact businesses and piggybacking on to the scale and operational efficiencies of a company that already sells in 160 markets.

This is the solution that global online retailer Shein has launched with the aim of helping both new and established fashion brands unlock fast-tracked international growth.

What is the Shein Xcelerator programme

The Shein Xcelerator programme aims to allow fashion founders to focus on building their brands on the creative side of the business, such as designing trend-setting prod­ucts, crafting innovative marketing campaigns and building engaged social media communities, while offering them a suite of direct-to-consumer (DTC) services – delivered by Shein – that power the online retail ecosystem, including its product fulfilment systems, on-demand production services and established global sales platform. In short, it aims to remove operational roadblocks so that ambitious, creative businesses can focus on building global brands.

The Missguided relaunch

The first brand to pilot the programme was British wom­enswear label Missguided. Launched in 2009 by Nitin Passi, Missguided quickly grew to be one of the UK’s most successful fast fashion labels thanks to its unique take on partywear and “going out” dresses, but, bruised by the impact of the pan­demic, it fell into administration in 2022. It was bought by Mike Ashley-owned Frasers Group that year, and acquired by China-founded, Singapore-headquartered Shein in 2023.

Missguided is now licensed by Shein to Passi via his brand house, Sumwon Studios. Under its creative leadership – and with the back-end support of the Shein Xcelerator pro­gramme – Missguided has risen again and is on track to generate £200m in revenue in just two years.

Cosmina autumn/winter 2025

Brands can often struggle to turn creative fashion ideas into scalable, shoppable products, whether because of complex cross-border logistics and fulfilment issues, a lack of market insights, or not having sufficiently mature or secure infrastructure to expand their business globally. Shein set up the Shein X programme in 2021 for up-and-coming design­ers to launch and manufacture their first collections, and sell them internationally via its online platform. The Shein Xcelerator concept evolved out of this, to help solve the headaches and avoid the obstacles that brands often face as they launch, as well as to give a boost to established fashion businesses that hit hurdles as they strive for growth, by leveraging Shein’s expertise across the value chain.

The results

A Shein Xcelerator pilot started in August 2023. Nearly 20 brands from around the world have been onboarded includ­ing womenswear brand Cosmina, and have achieved close to £300m in combined revenue, Shein says. It states that many of the brands experienced significant sales growth – on average of 190% in the first year.

As well as Missguided’s relaunch, which Shein says gener­ated £200m in revenue within two years, another success has been brand house Sumwon Studios.

Launched by Missguided founder Passi in partnership with Shein in 2023, it illustrates the intentions of the Shein Xcelerator by bringing together Sumwon Studios’ brand-building expertise with Shein’s services. It has launched streetwear-influenced men’s, women’s and children’s wear collections under the Sumwon label, as well as brands Kizn, Aiirz and Balr, alongside Missguided. The Sumwon brand alone is set to generate more than £100m in revenue in 2025, says Shein, helping drive the Sumwon Studios group towards a projected £750m of revenue in its third year.

Sumwon Studios success

“With Sumwon Studios, we’ve built a digital-first group with an insights-driven approach to better meet customer demand,” explains Passi. “The partnership with Shein, particularly its global reach and on-demand production service, has given us the platform to scale quickly and effi­ciently. The success of the relaunch of Missguided showcases what is possible when a strong brand identity meets Shein’s scale and operational excellence.” Brands of any size and scale can apply to join the Shein Xcelerator programme, and there are six spaces available in 2025. It says selection focuses on potential and synergy with Shein, as well as elements such as a strong creative identity and brand vision, clear understanding of customers, and the ambition to scale through digital channels.

The business model is flexible rather than “one size fits all” and can vary from brand to brand. In some cases it may take the form of a joint venture. In others, Shein provides the ser­vices while the brand retains full ownership. Looking ahead, Shein plans to expand the Xcelerator programme into addi­tional regions where brands are seeking what it describes as “the support and speed to scale globally”.

“With Shein Xcelerator, we aim to empower brands of every size to achieve their global ambitions,” says Donald Tang, executive chairman of Shein. “This is a win-win, with systemic impact delivered across the industry: sup­porting creativity, strengthening ecosystems and enabling more brands to thrive worldwide.”