An influencer trip to China with Shein! Visited a Guangzhou factory that produces clothing for Shein, the fast-fashion giant that has quietly infiltrated the wardrobes of American women, winning them over with shockingly low prices and pervasive TikTok advertising.
During four days visit, the influential took footage from inside a sparkling clean, brightly lit factory owned by one of the brand’s manufacturing partners, plus an “innovation center” and a warehouse, along with revelations from seeing the inner workings of fast-fashion production up close.
Brands increasingly invite influencers behind the scenes for such trips to “tell the stories that maybe they have a hard time telling themselves. The trips are organized to address the most frequent criticisms leveled at Shein from consumers, activists, and even some lawmakers: that its clothing is quickly and cheaply manufactured, with dangerous materials; that it uses enslaved person labor and child workers; and that its factories have abhorrent working conditions.
One influencer admitted that the China trip has been one of the most life-changing trips. She said the biggest takeaway from this trip is to be an independent thinker, get the facts and see it with your own two eyes.
However, there are distractors as well. The British public broadcaster Channel 4’s 2022 documentary “Inside the Shein Machine” sent secret cameras inside the company’s factories and found that workers were clocking 18-hour days with just one day off per month, making 500 pieces of clothing per day and earning pennies per garment.
One influencer who visited China however said child labor and fair wages are serious topics. When asking a few of the workers & employees about these topics everyone we came across was content with their salary and the idea of child labor was something they looked at me crazy for y’all.”
The visitors were severely criticized for calling themselves activists while accepting brand deals/money from a corporation that is ruining peoples’ lives and the environment. Shein is not only in the influencer crosshairs. Shein defended the trip, denying that the influencers were given talking points. A Shein spokesperson said. “Their social media videos and commentary are authentic, and we respect and stand by each influencer’s perspective and voice on their experience.”
The origins of Shein (pronounced “SHE-in”) go back more than a decade, but the brand as we now know it was founded in 2011 by search engine optimization specialist Chris Xu. Over the past four years, particularly as the coronavirus forced many people to be isolated in their homes, its popularity and revenue soared as shopping online became a form of entertainment, jumping from a 12 percent share of the U.S. fast-fashion sales in early 2020 to 50 percent as of November 2022. Its low price has knocked out many expensive fashion brands
Shein was valued at more than $100 billion in April 2022 — just behind ByteDance (TikTok’s parent company) and SpaceX as the third-most-valuable private company in the world. Earlier this year, its valuation was reduced to $63 billion as investors became bearish about tech start-ups.
Because of its vertical integration, Shein can churn out products at a breakneck pace. What can take another clothing business months to produce, Shein can often make in days.
Creators such as Carlton, Barber, Harrington, and Andrea Cheong have made Shein’s environmental and quality issues a regular target, presenting data to swing loyalists away from the brand.
In mid-June, two bipartisan bills were introduced to exempt China from de minimis trade, a rule that allows foreign countries to avoid paying tariffs on packages valued under $800. These are the kinds of packages shipped from the warehouse that the Shein partners dutifully showed off to their followers, which would affect many customer orders.
A Shein spokesperson said that “Shein proudly provides customers with on-demand and affordable fashion, beauty, and lifestyle products, lawfully and with full respect for the communities where we operate. We categorically deny these false and baseless claims.”
Shein is very easy to point at because of their size, and of how pernicious their marketing is through TikTok and Instagram. But it’s time to look at a lot of people.
Shein the fast fashion giant still under scrutiny in the US
