I’m sure we’ve all heard the news that Shein is coming back to Ireland to open a pop up shop in the Jervis Shopping Centre. After a brief pop up in March, the online retailer is due to be located in the Jervis centre from the 4th – 8th of November. The pop up shop allows customers to shop womenswear, menswear, activewear, shoes and SHEGLAM. While many TikTok lovers and haul girlies are naturally excited and ready to have a browse, I can say for sure I will not be supporting this pop up shop. Let’s discuss why.
Worker exploitation
According to a recent insider article by Sixth Tone, workers were still slaving away at 9pm, even though the heat was stifling and the staff barely had a break all day. Another allegation comes from a Channel4 documentary, which alleges that workers in these sweatshops earn just 3pence for each item of clothing produced. They are also accused of forcing workers into 18 hour shifts, and of withholding up to 75 percent of their daily salary if an item was made wrong.
Shein have made an excellent attempt at hiding their supply chain details, going so far as ordering staff to delete Instagram posts celebrating the brands success. In a report by Fashion Transparency Index, Shein received a score of 1 out of 100, possibly the worst score to receive when talking about transparency. One supplier has spoken about dealing with the brand. He never deals directly with the company, instead receiving orders through another factory. When orders come through, the factory owner, surnamed Chen, explains that the turnaround time for Shein orders is usually 7 days. On any other company’s order it is 2 weeks. As well as having no contact with the company, most of the supplies have no contracts signed with Shein either, and most of the aforementioned factories are poorly constructed buildings that are ready to crumble at any moment.
Damage to the environment
Do y’all wanna live past 40? Yeah? Okay, listen the hell up. Aside from being super super gross towards worker conditions, Shein (& the fast fashion industry overall) are huge contributors to the damage currently being inflicted on the planet. Even if you can’t see it super visibly, let’s take a minute to see just how bad it is. Just think about the weather Ireland had over the last 6 months. We had scorching hot days with temperatures reaching the mid thirties, and now in October there are still days where you’d manage without a coat. Is that for real? Usually at this stage you’d need a coat and scarf, and you’d be pulling out the Big Coat soon enough. Instead as a result of the production of so much clothing, we’re seeing adverse weather reactions. Not only that, but it takes 20,000 litres of water to produce 1kg of cotton. You don’t need to be a genius to know that we don’t exactly have an unlimited source of water at our disposal. Another point is how aquatic life is faring. Each time we wash an item made of synthetic fibres, tiny pieces of plastic are released into the water, which eventually end up in our seas, meaning plastic has been introduced into our food chain.
Encouragement of mass consumption & loss of unique items
This is the last point I want to make about why Shein and the likes are no good. Obviously with Shein the entire business model is about catching the trends, churning out millions of items of clothing so we can all follow the trend and doing that over and over again. You see the problem right? Not only is Shein producing millions of pieces of clothing a week, but they are encouraging consumers to buy and reinforcing the frankly ridiculous idea that we need millions of new clothes. When we grow accustomed to buying new clothes all the time in response to the latest trends, we forget the true purpose of clothes, that they should last years without needing to be replaced. Quality of items mass produced also comes into question here. Lately we’re seeing trends coming back around in rapid time. I remember wearing Ugg boots when I was like 10, about 10 years ago. They’re now this season’s hottest trend. Trends should not be moving that fast. This mass consumption also means that because everyone is buying the same polyester top from Shein that having unique pieces of clothing is a rare sight. Now everyone has the same clothes that are all destroying the planet.
So, that’s my rant over, for now. I truly believe there is no way you should be supporting these brands. (Disclaimer that I know there are lower income people who must shop from cheaper shops. It’s the haul girlies I’m having a go at). While some will turn a blind eye to what’s going on, most of us can’t. This is a growing problem that is mainly concerning the youth of today – it is our future world we are damaging, day in and day out. So next time you open the Shein website or browse PLT, question whether it’s really worth having a new top if the planet won’t be here in 30 years to wear it on.