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Influencers face backlash after gushing over working conditions at Shein factory
After a recent trip to some of the company's facilities in Guangzhou, China,
young tastemakers fawned over happy employees and sweat-free working conditions.
Now the influencers are facing a backlash.


BUSINESS


SHEIN INVITED INFLUENCERS ON AN ALL-EXPENSES-PAID TRIP. HERE'S WHY PEOPLE ARE
LIVID

June 30, 20235:55 AM ET

Vanessa Romo

Enlarge this image

Fast-fashion giant Shein has been accused of human rights violations and
unsustainable environmental practices. The company is once again under attack
after sending a group of social media influencers on a highly curated tour of
some of its facilities in Guangzhou, China. Richard A. Brooks/AFP via Getty
Images hide caption

toggle caption
Richard A. Brooks/AFP via Getty Images


Fast-fashion giant Shein has been accused of human rights violations and
unsustainable environmental practices. The company is once again under attack
after sending a group of social media influencers on a highly curated tour of
some of its facilities in Guangzhou, China.

Richard A. Brooks/AFP via Getty Images

Shein, the Chinese fast-fashion behemoth, knows its customer base — Gen Zers who
buy their clothes through TikTok ads and other social media platforms. So it
makes sense that in an effort to rehabilitate its public image ahead of a
possible initial public offering in the U.S., the company, now based in
Singapore, turned to a group of social media influencers.

This month, Shein (pronounced SHE-in) flew a group of young and diverse
tastemakers on an all-expenses-paid trip to Guangzhou, in southeast China, to
tour some of its manufacturing facilities. The goal: show those influencers'
followers that, contrary to ongoing reports, the company's operations are all
aboveboard. Recent reports allege that Shein's extremely cheap prices are made
possible by forced labor, human rights violations, stealing other designers'
work and the peddling of clothing made with potentially hazardous materials.

The plan worked. The influencers gushed about clean factories and smiling, happy
workers who don't break a sweat.

"Upon interviewing the workers, a lot of them were really confused and taken
back with the child labor questions and the lead-in-the-clothing questions,"
influencer Destene Sudduth, a creator with more than 4 million followers, said
in a TikTok video. "They weren't even sweating. We were the ones sweating!"




BUSINESS


SOCIAL MEDIA IS DECIDING TRENDS AT BREAKNECK PACE, AND IT'S FUELING FAST FASHION

Now, the Shein ambassadors are facing blowback from critics who say they are
participating in a propaganda stunt designed to mislead customers.

The online hate was fast and furious, with comments like these:

"They showed you what they wanted you to see."

"I tip my hat to the marketing villain that came up with this."

"It feels like they used you for damage control and it's disturbing."

Other commenters noted that the group's visit was limited to the company's
"innovation center" and that the influencers were not offered a glimpse inside
its warehouses or other factories.


BUSINESS


WHY INDIE BRANDS ARE AT WAR WITH SHEIN AND OTHER FAST-FASHION COMPANIES

Company officials dispute the characterization.

"Shein is committed to transparency and this trip reflects one way in which we
are listening to feedback, providing an opportunity to show a group of
influencers how Shein works through a visit to our innovation center and
enabling them to share their own insights with their followers," Shein said in a
statement.


WHAT IS SHEIN ACCUSED OF DOING?

A new congressional report titled "Fast Fashion and the Uyghur Genocide,"
published last week, details how Shein skirts strict import regulations
established in the 2021 Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act by using their
networks of Chinese suppliers and direct-to-consumer models.

Most of the alleged abuses are linked not to the modernized factories visited by
the group of influencers in Guangzhou, but to Shein's supply chain in the
Xinjiang region of China, where human rights abuses against the Uyghur minority
have been widely documented. The U.S. banned imports from the region in 2021.



Shein has said it has no suppliers in the Xinjiang region and "zero tolerance
for forced labor."


ASIA


HOW GOODS MADE WITH FORCED LABOR END UP IN YOUR LOCAL AMERICAN STORE

The congressional study states, "These initial and interim findings ... raise
serious concerns about the continued presence of products made with forced labor
contaminating American imports."

In the 2022 British documentary Inside the Shein Machine: Untold, filmmakers
found exhausted employees working up to 18 hours a day, often seven days a week.
The workers were required to meet strict quotas, while being paid as little as
$20 a day and sometimes fined up to two-thirds of their daily wages for making
mistakes.

Another investigation, by the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., determined that some
of Shein's inexpensive clothing "had elevated levels of chemicals — including
lead, PFAS and phthalates — that experts found concerning."


HOW BIG IS THE FAST-FASHION COMPANY?

While Shein has been around since 2008 in a number of variations, it really
grabbed hold of consumers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, the
fast-fashion giant has become one of the world's fastest-growing e-commerce
companies.

The online merchant's valuation rose from $5 billion in 2019 to $66 billion as
of May.

The retailer also produces more styles than any other clothing company.


NATIONAL


CALLS TO SHUT DOWN SHEIN, A CHINESE FAST FASHION COMPANY, ARE GROWING


BUSINESS


SHEIN SALES ARE SLOWING DOWN. IS THE END NEAR FOR THE FAST FASHION GIANT?

Sheng Lu, a professor at the University of Delaware who studies the global
textile and apparel industry, analyzed the annual output of some of the largest
global companies. Lu told Wired that over 12 months, the Gap listed about 12,000
different items on its website, H&M had roughly 25,000 and Zara had about
35,000. During the same period, Shein had 1.3 million.

The company's jaw-dropping success is largely attributed to its unique marketing
strategy. It has poured millions of dollars into online ad campaigns on Google,
Facebook and more traditional brand faces. But the core of its strategy is the
use of social media influencers and fashion bloggers with moderate-size
followings, such as those contracted to attend the sponsored event this month.
The online micro-celebrities are compensated with free clothes (which they show
off in #SheinHaul videos), trips or per-post payments.




HOW ARE SHEIN'S VISITING INFLUENCERS RESPONDING TO THE LATEST BACKLASH?

Since posting about the trip, at least one influencer has ended her relationship
with the company.

In a post Wednesday, Instagrammer and YouTuber Dani Carbonari, who goes by Dani
DMC, said she has ended a newly signed deal with Shein, which came about
following her glowing reviews of the visit.


BUSINESS


EUROPE HAS DESIGNS ON MAKING THE 'FAST FASHION' INDUSTRY MORE SUSTAINABLE

"I have terminated my relationship with Shein upon returning from the trip, and
I will no longer be aligned with them or work with them in any capacity now or
ever in the future," the plus-size model told her combined audience of more than
a million followers.

Carbonari added: "I made a huge mistake. I always try to lead with me, my
younger self and my community in mind, and I let us down. I did us wrong."

She did not address the company's problematic record or any of the human rights
allegations that have been made against it.

 * Shein
 * influencers
 * fast fashion
 * China

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