'Fashion Influencers' Go On SHEIN Sponsored Trip To Fake Factory, Report Everything Great

Amazingly, the company sponsored tour did not include any sweatshops

It is pretty common knowledge at this point, even for people who are not super hep to the wider problems of fast fashion and sweatshops, that SHEIN is a bad company. Like, a really, really bad company. Hell, common sense alone tells us that there's pretty much no way that anyone is getting a (new) dress for $7 without some pretty bad labor conditions going into the process of making it. Googling, however, tells us that the company has come under fire recently for their alleged use of forced labor. 

SHEIN is aware of this, and also aware of the fact that many online fashion influencers have publicly vowed to stop promoting, wearing and buying their clothes. They're especially aware of it in light of the fact that they are planning to go public in the United States with an IPO in the near future.

Looking to improve their image, they sent a bunch of Instagram fashion influencers to China recently to go on a tour of one of their 6,000 (literally 6,000) factories and report back about how wonderful they are and how there are not even any children chained to any of their sewing machines.

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That particular video was from Dani Carbinaro, known as DaniDMC, who has 482K followers on Instagram and describes herself as a "confidence activist," but there are several others, all hinged on the same "Nothing to see here, everything is great!" theme. In her Instagram post, Carbinaro attempted to connect criticism of SHEIN to racism and sinophobia, suggesting that the only reason anyone thought SHEIN was a bad company was because they don't like or understand China. Of course, while some criticism of Chinese labor can veer in that direction and shouldn't ... that's hardly all it is.

it’s hard for me to even put into words how this trip has impacted me.

Not only getting to see with my own two eyes what the entire process of @sheinofficial clothing looks like from beginning to end but also getting to experience China surrounded by people born & raised there completely expanded my mind and just further confirmed how important travel & perspective is.

You have to remember our country is filled with so much prejudice - we want to believe we’re the best and no one else can be better. But what if we’re just different and no one is better than another? We can accept our differences and be intrigued by the individuality of it all.

I’m so grateful for @doraisclassicwho answered ALL of my million questions and taught me so much about her country and Shein. I feel more confident than ever with my partnership with @shein_us 🫶🏼 There are so many companies not taking half the initiative shein is. They are aware of every single rumor and instead of staying quiet they are fighting with all of their power to not only show us the truth but continue to improve and be the best they can possibly be.

I feel happy knowing that I have such amazing people making the clothing I wear and that they are just as passionate with their work as I am. I’m so grateful I got to see them in their environment, speak to them, & embrace them.

Yeah, no.

Other influencers who made the trip were influencers Destene Sudduth, Aujené, Fernanda, Stephany Campuzano, Kenya Freeman, and Marina Saavedra, all of whom agreed that this was Definitely Not A Sweatshop.

This did not go over too well with any of the influencers' followers or with the public at large. SHEIN has been trending on social media for the better part of the past two days, with users heavily criticizing them for trying to whitewash the company's well-known problematic labor practices.

Via The Cut:  

In one factory, Channel 4 found that workers receive a base salary of 4,000 yuan per month — roughly $556 — to make 500 pieces of clothing per day and that their first month’s pay is withheld from them; in another factory, workers received the equivalent of four cents per item. Workers in both factories were working up to 18-hour days and were given only one day off a month. In one factory, the outlet found women washing their hair during lunch breaks, and workers were penalized two-thirds of their daily wage if they made a mistake on a clothing item.[...]

Shein has repeatedly come under fire for just about everything you can do wrong with a company, including poor working conditions , high levels of toxic chemicals in its clothing, copying independent designers’ items , and mishandling customer data .

Susan Bailey, a Twitter user with a background in fashion manufacturing, did a deep dive on the trip, explaining how this could not possibly be a manufacturing facility, due to the lack of fire exits, safety information posters, fire extinguishers and the fact that the garments were being cut one at a time.

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"I visited factories in China 2-4 times a year between 1990 to 2020," Bailey said. "I saw this type of fake stuff all the time, fashion manufacturing is destroying the environment and it’s why I now work in tech."

In case you want to go further than just not buying obviously terrible fast fashion, there is a site called Good On You that will tell you just how ethical your favorite clothing brands are (I, apparently, have some work to do on this front myself). While it may contain some super disappointing information (I'm really gonna need Free People to do better, specifically, as there are so few other brands that make tops for those of us with excessively long arms), there are also a lot of cool brands that are doing the right thing that are worth checking out. (Weirdly, one of them is Mud jeans, which I legitimately did not know continued to exist past 1997)

I also highly recommend reading Consumed: The Need for Collective Change: Colonialism, Climate Change, and Consumerism by Aja Barber.

OPEN THREAD!

 Do your Amazon shopping through this link, because reasons .

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