I am sure that most of you who are reading this article are college students, and I know that college students love cheap things. Shein is a company that we all know about, which sells mass amounts of extremely affordable clothing for endless different styles and aesthetics.
Retrieved from nymag.com
First, let's define what microtends are. A microtend, specifically in fashion context, is when a certain trend in clothing quickly arises, and then leaves the trend cycle even faster. Some relatively current examples of this would be cow print, that one 70s aesthetic swirl pattern that we all know and no longer love, and the Y2K style beaded necklaces.
It is human nature to desire to fit in, and in this generation that means partaking in current trends. This then brings us to Shein, which never fails to offer cheap options of clothing and accessories that are up to date with trends. Who wouldn’t love that?
I’ll take it upon myself to answer this question, and that would be the suppliers’ employees who are working 75 hour weeks. To put this into perspective, a full time job is 40 hours a week.
Employees' pay tends to differ by warehouse, some workers making 4 cents per clothing item they make, which is on average 500 items a day, while some have a base pay of around $556 a month. If these employees are working 75 hour weeks, that means that they are getting paid $1.85 an hour.
This pay is not guaranteed though as it has been reported that if an employee makes any sort of error in their clothing production they will get ⅔ of their pay for the day taken away.
If you don’t already see this pay as inhumane, let me tell you about their working conditions. Women have been seen washing their hair during their lunch breaks, as that is the only time where they are able to do so. Shein was also criticized for clothing containing toxic chemicals, such as PFAS and phthatalates. Workshops are said to have no emergency exits and barred windows.
Retrieved from nymag.com
Here are some Shein statistics: Roughly 6,000 new products are added to the website on a daily basis, a piece of clothing has a 25 day turnaround time, and the average item costs around $9.
If after all of this information you are still willing to buy from Shein, let me tell you some more. Supporting small businesses is something that is very fulfilling to do, as these business owners dedicate so much of their time and energy to growing these businesses and producing products for their growing customer base. Shein is infamously known for stealing designs from these small business owners.
A small crochet brand, called Elexiay posted images of their designs in a side to side comparison with ones being sold by Shein. The designs were completely identical to the ones created by Elexiay. The images posted quickly went viral, and led to many other small business owners posting images of their products and ones nearly identical to them on Shein.
Retrieved from nymag.com
Many Tik Tok influencers have also been posting videos of Shein hauls, flaunting them spending hundreds of dollars on this brand. Evidently they can afford shopping at sustainable brands, but choose to ignore the wrongs of Shein just for cheap clothing and a video going viral.
I hope that Shein employees will get justice and the working conditions they deserve, but this will not happen if people continue supporting this inhumane brand as they have. People are turning their back to a human rights issue, all because they want a trendy top for $3.
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