Explained: Why Is Chinese Fast Fashion Brand Shein Facing Backlash?

Shein is again in the eye of a storm over a overtly choreographed PR junket featuring fashion influencers.

The one thing the Chinese fast fashion company Shein is synonymous with is 'cheap prices.'

(Photo: iStock)

The one thing the Chinese fast fashion company Shein is synonymous with is 'cheap prices.'

The brand, however, is a lucrative one. In 2022, it was valued at $100 billion, much ahead of the valuation for other popular international brands like Zara, and H&M.

But this growth has come with controversies – from being accused of plagarising designs, human rights violation, and complaints about poor quality of clothing.

The most recent controversy being an overtly choreographed PR junket featuring fashion influencers.

While Shein has been banned in India in June 2020, following deteriorating bilateral relationship with China, there's an undeniable interest in the brand.

Why has the junket caused such a storm? Is there a broader business context to it? The Quint answers all these questions for you.

What Actually Happened?

According to Time magazine, earlier this month a group of influencers went on a trip to tour Shein's “innovation center” in China and posted positive videos about their experiences. The trip was sponsored by the firm itself.

But are such trips unusual? The answer is no. Brands often plan and execute such trips to promote new products or generate online buzz.

The firm invited the influencers on an official brand trip to Guangzhou, China, to get what it promised would be an inside look at how their clothes are designed, manufactured, and shipped.

But the influencers received backlash over the weekend after one of the influencers, Dani Carbonari, uploaded a now-deleted Instagram reel in which she said that she was embarking on this trip as an “investigative journalist” and that she “interviewed” a woman who worked in the fabric-cutting department.

The reel also touted the company’s working conditions, the center’s large footprint, and innovative technology. Carbonari, who has over 2,97,000 followers on TikTok, came under fire for inaccurately presenting herself as a journalist and for taking the firm's public relations messages at face value.

Once the junket began to receive more attention on social media, many began questioning the influencers’ decision to accept the free trip despite the numerous reports alleging labour abuses, poor working conditions, etc.

As Washington Post journalist Taylor Lorenz told in an Instagram reel, the influencers' "unfiltered positive reports raised questions about media literacy and the proliferation of unchallenged propaganda on social media."

“I don’t know of any other instance where there was an overt agenda like the Shein example,” Mae Karwowski, founder of Obviuosly, an influencer marketing agency, told The Quint.

She added that it came across as a sort of propaganda. "While criticism against the firm has not necessarily deterred users, the overt praise stood out, " she added.

How Has Shein Reacted?

According to The New York Times, Shein has been forced to issue a statement saying it was “saddened” to see the backlash against its creators and has a “wellness check” to gauge how creators were faring after the torrent of online vitriol.

In a statement, Shein said the trip “reflects one way in which we are listening to feedback.”

“Their social media videos and commentary are authentic, and we respect and stand by each influencer’s perspective and voice on their experience,” the company added.

Meanwhile, the creators have been deleting negative comments on their social media accounts and posting defensive videos, according to the newspaper.

Is There a Larger Context?

There is a broader business context for the Shein junket. According to Reuters, the firm is planning for an IPO (initial public offering) in the United States (US) this year.

However, in May, a group of about 24 US representatives asked the Securities and Exchange Commission to put brakes on the IPO until the firm can verify that it does not use forced labor to create its garments.

What Are the Other Allegations Made Against the Firm?

The allegations against the firm are a plenty. Among other things, the firm has been accused of pushing its workers to work 75 hours per shift with almost no time off.

A probe in 2021 by Swiss watchdog group Public Eye into 17 factories supplying items for Shein found that staffers mostlty worked in unsafe conditions. Several factory workers told researchers they worked up to 75 hours a week and got only one day off each month.

None of them had been given an employment contract, they said, which is a violation of labor laws in China.

In October 2022,Britian's Channel 4  probed into the company's labor practices and found that employees from at least two of the company's factories worked 18-hour days and made about $.02 cents per item. 

In November 2022, Bloomberg released a report which found that garments made by Shein contained cotton produced in China's contested Xinjiang region. The US State Department banned cotton imports in 2021 from Xinjiang over concerns over human rights abuses of the Uyghur ethnic minority group.

In April this year, a US Congressional panel said Shein, online superstore Temu and others in China had links to forced labor within their material sourcing supply chain.

Last year, two artists accused the firm of stealing their sticker designs.

A Cautionary Tale for Marketers?

The eagerness to make content for brands and for brands to tap popular creators has repeatedly backfired. For instance, influencers promoting crypto projects made thousands of dollars. But later these projects turned out to be scams.

Kim Kardashian paid a $1 after sharing sponcon for a crypto token without properly disclosing it was an advertisement.

Last year, TikTok and Instagram were full with sponsored content made for a app called Nate, which claimed to use artificial intelligence to autocomplete online shopping transactions. 

Fashion and lifestyle influencers earned big bucks in shopping credits by getting followers to sign up for the app. But the “AI” reportedly ended up just being human workers in the Philippines.

In December, Nate fled with influencers' earnings, abruptly suspending its influencer program.

"When brand deals go haywire, it is often the individual influencer who becomes the center of the maelstrom, as was the case with the Shein image rehab trip," added Karwowski.