Who makes Shein’s clothes?
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This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Nowadays, a cheap T-shirt is just a click away. You don't need to look far to see that fast fashion brands like Shein are booming. And that's despite the fact that some of these companies have also made headlines for the wrong reasons, like the treatment of their workers and allegations of forced labour. Now the BBC has been to Panyu. It's a neighbourhood in the city of Guangzhou in China, and it's also known as Shein Village.

So who's making your clothes when you buy from Shein? And what really goes on inside Shein Village? That's what you're going to hear today on What in the World from the BBC World Service. I'm Hannah Gelbart. I'm speaking to Laura Bicker, the BBC World Service.

the BBC's China correspondent who went inside Xi'an Village. Hi, Laura. Hello, how are you doing? Good, thanks. So, Laura, we're talking about Xi'an, a company worth about 66 billion US dollars, and it's only around five years old, so it's quite new. Where did Xi'an come from and how did it get to be so big? So, yeah, as you mentioned, it's a little-known Chinese company about five years ago, and then the pandemic hit, and everybody wanted to buy their clothes online. As, you know, you can easily look at every single thing online online,

and you can decide what you want to buy. I think the difference with Shein was first of all, their success came from their influencers. So they have a lot of people on Instagram, TikTok,

social media that they supply clothes to and they call them these Sheehan hauls so these massive bags of Sheehan clothing would arrive they would try them on in front of the camera they would say look this is what I've got and it's all so cheap you know you're looking at a $12 dress or a £10 dress you're looking at trousers that are £12 and the other thing is volume Sheehan has a lot a lot on their website

and if it starts to sell they can ramp up that production extremely quickly and get it to customers. So those are the two things that it did very, very well. And then over the last five years it surpassed Zara, it surpassed H&M and now it's become this massive global behemoth of a company that everybody seems to know, especially if you're under 30. You have been to the so-called Sheehan Village. What was it like there?

This is like a warren of about 5,000 factories. And, you know, you go through all these maze-like back alleys and there's building after building after building. And within these buildings are kind of layers of hollowed out factories. And in them are lines and lines and lines and lines of sewing machines, of steaming machines, of people kind of wandering around, making sure that bits of fabric are being scooped up.

And then as you come outside, there's always this constant delivery of textiles. And by that I mean they don't just come by lorry. Some of them come by scooter. And these beautifully coloured textile rolls of massive fabric

are piled on top of scooters. Sometimes there's like 10 rolls of fabric on one tiny scooter and they move from factory to factory. It's like a constant movement right from seven in the morning to well past midnight. So we spent time on the streets

right in the morning just to see what was happening. We watched workers head off into the factories. We saw them break for lunch. We saw them break for dinner. And then I think the shock for us was around 10 o'clock at night.

And, you know, we still saw the factory lights going on and we visited one factory and he's like, yeah, yeah, they're still here and they'll be here to pass midnight. We spoke to many workers who told us that the average working week for them was around 75 hours a week. I mean, one worker said, look, if there's 31 days in a month, I'll work 31 days. Most only had one day off a month. How does that fit in with Chinese labour laws?

So Chinese labour laws say that you should only work 44 hours a week and you should have at least one day off a week. It's worth pointing out to your listeners if they're sitting there going, oh my goodness, this is a lot. This is an industrial hub.

There are workers who travel hundreds of miles to Guangzhou and what they do is they spend years here earning as much money as they possibly can to send back to their families, most of whom are in small rural villages. And they're sending that money back for the next generation. They believe this is their duty. They believe that it's up to them to go away and earn. And the more...

that they earn, the better they believe their family does. Now, the problem when it comes to Shein and to many of the textile companies is

is that the workers get paid per piece. So say you're making a t-shirt for instance, you get paid about 1 to 2 yuan per t-shirt. Now that is, if you're looking at US dollars, it's about 10 cents and they earn that per t-shirt. If you're particularly fast, you can make lots of those in an hour, then you're doing well. If you're not, then you may want to work longer.

So it says a lot about the kind of people that work in Guangzhou, hardworking, they feel that that's what they're meant to do. But also it says a lot about the industry in China, because that is what workers want to do. They want to fuel Chinese industry. What else did you find out about the working conditions?

When we spoke to people, one of whom was a migrant worker from Jiangsu, and she was there to look after her family. She was sending money home to help her children. And she was looking actually for day work. So the thing with Xi'an is that they have their kind of regular factory and their regular factory workers.

What they do is they have these small orders. So they'll try, perhaps, like you're wearing, let's go back to the T-shirt. If that T-shirt particularly sells well, then they'll ramp up production. And for that, they need extra workers. So she was at the job market looking through the stitching of each of the kind of articles she was being asked to make.

And she told us that, yes, she gets paid one to two yuan per piece. And that she said she earned probably between 4,000 and 6,000 yuan a month. Now, that is a bit...

about £400 a month and she maybe took one day off a month. We also spoke to others though, a Sheehan supplier, and she grabbed us and she said, oh, Sheehan is a great company. They pay people on time and it employs around 80% of people in the area. So there are these conflicting views. We went to one job market where we were surrounded by

by workers who were just telling us about all the different firms. Most of them worked for Sheehan at some point and they were telling us about how they went about finding the work, how they were looking at the stitching and how important it is to them to look to see if they can do the job because actually their speed and skill determines how much they make.

I'm on the Shein website now and I can see there are all these pop-ups offering me 30-35% off and that's on t-shirts that only cost around 5-6 US dollars which is pretty cheap. How does it make clothes that are that cheap? It's volume and it's choice of material and it's workforce and

And when you speak to factory owners, they will tell you that in the past, before Sheehan, they would decide the price of an item. They would decide how much it costs. But Sheehan goes to them and says, no, this is how much we want to sell this for. This is what you have to do it for. So the factory owner has to make a decision about where he's going to make cuts. Now, many of them wouldn't tell us where those cuts are going to be.

But when we spoke to workers and job fairs, etc., they told us that Sheehan does pay less

than some of, for instance, for a Chinese firm that sells internally in China. Xi'an denies this. It says it's committed to ensuring the fair and dignified treatment of all workers within its supply chain, that they're investing tens of millions of dollars in strengthening governance and compliance. And they say when it comes to pay, they set the highest standards for pay and require that all supply chain partners adhere

As Laura mentioned, there are different factors that make Shein's clothes so cheap. And it's that price tag, as well as the convenience of being able to buy online, which is why their clothes are so appealing to consumers, especially if you're on a budget or looking for a bargain. But as we become more aware of the potential impacts of fast fashion, some people are seeking alternatives, like 17-year-old Onyeka, who's a fashion blogger from South Carolina in the U.S.

My journey with fast fashion began honestly growing up as a teenager and seeing people around me trying out new styles and trendy pieces and wanting to do the same. But unfortunately, I bought my own clothing so I had a tight budget and so I naturally felt pushed towards fast fashion brands.

And I think I kind of fell into the cycle of getting tons of clothing and flimsy dresses and I would always justify it by saying, oh, I will recycle everything. I will use it until it's worn down. I will pass things down. I will be okay. Like this isn't bad if I don't throw things away.

When in reality, things were a lot different. And I think that the shift started when I used to see videos on my For You page. And then I would see the factories and the conditions in the factories. And I would see the environmental impacts of a lot of these manufacturing processes. And I felt like, wow, I should really not use these fast fashion brands anymore. So I tried to stay away from it. I tried to thrift. I tried to buy from sustainable brands. But even sustainable brands are...

packaged in a way where it's like there are still impacts and i know that i'm still not perfect i still buy clothes i still consume i still will never stop completely i still will probably get a few more fast fashion pieces in the future but i do think that as a society we should try to fight back against fashion brands in whatever way we can

Laura, back to you. What are some of the other issues and controversies with the company? So we have seen in UK Parliament in the last week one of the biggest controversies surrounding Xi'an, and that is whether or not it sources cotton from the Chinese region of Xinjiang. Now, Xinjiang has been under investigation by many human rights groups for several years because there are allegations that firms are using forced labour. They're using Uyghur Muslims,

to collect cotton and make cotton to supply Chinese firms. So that's one of the biggest allegations facing Xi'an. And we saw at the UK Parliament just last week where the top lawyer for Xi'an,

went in front of many MPs and couldn't answer the question. They would not be clear whether or not they sourced their cotton from Xinjiang where others were. So that's one of the biggest controversies when it comes to Shein. There have been previous investigations that have shown perhaps cramped conditions, workers working in very, very difficult conditions. Indeed, that's not what we saw. We saw the factories were crammed

you know, quite spacious, light and airy. And also they brought in fans to make sure workers were kept cool. There's also a sign on the back wall in Chinese urging people to report any cases of child labour. Xi and themselves last year found two cases of child labour in its supply chain.

And I think they say that they are doing their best to ensure that that doesn't happen again. So what I was saying, and certainly when you speak to analysts, is or are signs that Sheehan is trying to clean up its act in some way.

because they know that they are preparing or certainly there are reports, they've refused to confirm it, there are reports that they're preparing to sell shares on the London Stock Exchange. So I think when it comes to Sheehan themselves, they have found their own problems as well as others investigating them.

increasing questions and our investigation will add to that. Laura, thank you so much for speaking to us. No problem. Nowadays it is easier than ever to buy cheap clothes and it can be incredibly tempting to buy huge hauls from Shein online. But after hearing from Laura I think it's also worth pausing to think about the bigger picture and some of the hidden costs of fast fashion.

That is it for today's episode. Thank you for listening. If you want to find out more about the environmental impact of fast fashion, where it comes from, where it ends up, we have done another episode on it. It's called What's Going On With Fast Fashion, and you can find it wherever you get your BBC podcasts. I'm Hannah Gelbart. This is What In The World from the BBC World Service, and we'll be back with another episode tomorrow. See you then. Bye.

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