After days of rumors, it’s official: Shein is acquiring Everlane. The news has shocked Everlane’s millennial customers, who are having a hard time coming to terms with a “green” brand being sold to a fast fashion powerhouse. But perhaps the bigger question here is: What does Shein want with Everlane?The Everlane side of this deal is pretty easy to explain. The brand’s popularity has been declining and it needed cash, said Sucharita Kodali, a retail analyst at Forrester.“They must have been really desperate to sell. They must have been shopping themselves around and this may have been the best offer they’ve received,” she said.The deal is reported to be worth $100 million.“You know they say that politics makes strange bedfellows. I think that desperate retailers make strange bedfellows,” she said.While Everlane was desperate to be saved, Shein is desperate to expand. The brand has tried to go public several times — in the U.S, London, and Hong Kong. But it’s run into regulatory problems and questions about its supply chain and labor practices. Everlane with it’s “radical transparency” brand could help clean up Shein’s image.“I think it would be marketing at this point. It’s a way to cover up a lot,” said Jessica Ramirez, co-founder of the retail consulting firm The Consumer Collective. “Something like this helps give them a positive light that they are trying to maybe they’re taking some of those strategies.”Plus, if Shein wants to go public, it has to be global, said Sheng Lu, a professor of retail merchandising strategy at the University of Delaware.“Shein is known as a Chinese company. And under the current business or geopolitical environment, Shein definitely faces a lot of scrutiny,” he said.Everlane is not Shein’s first foray into other brands. It had already bought Missguided, a U.K. label. And it formed a partnership with Forever 21. Lu thinks for Shein, this is just the beginning. “It has the ambition to become bigger. Shein’s business model is evolving,” he said. Evolving from a single fast fashion website into a portfolio of brands.