Channel 4’s recent UNTOLD documentary Inside the Shein Machine revealed that Chinese factory workers supplying the online retailer work up to and over 18 hours a day for 3p per garment.
The undercover investigation also showed that the average monthly salary for some workers was 4000 yuan (around £490), and that even those low wages can be deducted by 33 percent if the workers make mistakes.
Details of Shein’s unethical practices are not new. Last year Swiss advocacy group Public Eye published similar findings.
But Shein’s use of sweatshops does not appear to phase its Gen Z customer base, whose purchases contributed towards profits of $16 billion in 2021, and helped Shein skyrocket to number one fashion retailer in the world this year.
I asked two East Londoners whether the Shein revelations would affect their behaviour.
German model Ivy Pevh told me that although, “… it can be hard to model for fast fashion brands like Zalando,” as modelling was her only source of income, she had to push ethics to one side.
“You have to dissociate from a brands’ ways of being,” she said. “If not I can’t afford to live my life, and it is a job at the end of the day.”
But journalism student Carissa Svedberg told me she would definitely now cut ties with the online giant.
“I don’t think one person can stop something so big, but hopefully with the news spreading it’ll have an impact as one by one we try and be more sustainable.”
Shopping ethically won’t get any easier given the rising cost of living in the UK. But Gen Z do have some more sustainable app-based alternatives such as Vinted and Depop, although that does mean going secondhand.
But for those who can afford sustainable fashion that is also new, in East London the options include 69b Boutique in London Fields, Aida in Shoreditch,
Despite all the evidence against the Chinese megabrand, Shein has repeatedly denied responsibility for poor working conditions.
Edited by Nadrine Narku