Written by Naomi May
A new Channel 4 documentary is set to uncover the truth behind the fastest-growing fast fashion brand on the planet, Shein.
With a recent valuation at £84 billion, Shein is now the fastest-growing fast fashion brand on the planet, but how much do we know about what goes on behind closed doors? That’s precisely the question that a new Channel 4 documentary, which is available to watch from today, sets out to answer.
Hosted by journalist Iman Amrani, Inside The Shein Machine sends an undercover worker into Shein’s factories in the Chinese province of Guangzhou for the first time and the findings are stark. While Chinese labour laws require workers to work no more than 40 hours a week, the All4 documentary pulls the curtain back on a toxic work culture that underpays staff and sees them often start work at 8am and finish in the early hours of the morning.
“The factory has a very inhumane system,” the undercover reporter tells Amrani at one point in the documentary. Workers are expected to make hundreds of items every shift, with the average daily wage of a Shein factory worker standing at a measly £56.
Shein launched in 2015, having evolved from its origins as a wedding dress wholesaler, Sheinside, and is now a fast fashion brand whose app has gone on to become the most downloaded in America.
The #SheinHaul hashtag on TikTok, another Chinese company, has amassed 6.9 billion views, with users on the app boasting about their inexpensive items that, in the words of one of the documentary’s interviewees, are the result of the brand’s “test-and-repeat model”.
Despite concerns that fashion is the second-largest polluter to the environment, Shein’s customers are reeled into its appeal by smart influencer marketing. One interviewee notes that “Shein has taken the fast fashion model of producing clothes and put it on steroids,” – and increasingly low prices. It’s become so prolific, in fact, that its sales figures have rocketed by almost 400% to £14.5 billion.
Inside The Shein Machine finds that the brand is failing in terms of its sustainability quota and employee policies under Chinese labour law, with one worker telling the undercover reporter that “there’s no such thing as Sundays here”.
The solution could be tighter restrictions on fast fashion brands and more regulations on Chinese factories and employee working conditions, but for a brand that ships to 220 countries worldwide and shows no signs of slowing down, it remains to be seen what action will be taken by Shein in response to the findings.
Stylist has reached out to Shein for comment, but at the time of publishing, has yet to receive a response.
Untold: Inside the Shein Machine is available to watch on All 4 now.
Images: Getty
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