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64 Comm-Entary 2021- 2022 SHEIN: How Immaterial Labor Fuels the Capitalist Fast Fashion Industry Sara Donatello Introduction SHEIN is an international fast-fashion clothing retailer that offers clothing for men, women, and children along with other categories such as bags, accessories, and cosmetics. This e- commerce centered company provides consumers worldwide with products at an inexpensive price. The fast fashion industry consists of a feedback loop that would not function without all parties involved: extraction of raw materials, manufacturing and production, distribution, and consumption. Specific to this research, the continued increase in consumption feeds the increased need for the production of goods. When talking about fast fashion, consumerism is not a topic that is usually brought up as most consumers do not want to acknowledge that their role in the industry is of any importance. On the contrary, consumerism and immaterial labor are what fuels the fast fashion industry. Jack Qiu defines immaterial labor as someone who “produces the informational and cultural content of the commodity” (Qiu, 100). Aside from the physical purchasing of a product or commodity, there is much sharing of information that goes on to promote and spread knowledge about brands and products. Today, influencers hold a significant amount of power on social media platforms when it comes to promoting brands through paid partnerships, or even just sharing products they use and love. Empirical research includes a Google Forms questionnaire created for the purpose of this paper that was sent out to SHEIN consumers. The questionnaire included multiple choice and long answer questions covering the following topics: factors that influence purchases, how the consumer heard of SHEIN, experience and expectations, quality and satisfaction, fashion trends, and an opinion-based question regarding SHEIN as a company. The data collected from the questionnaire will be applied to the theoretical data collected to further explain purchasing patterns and what consumers look for in a product.
Donatello 65 Scholarly literature from both academic and outside peer-reviewed sources will be used to provide a theoretical framework to further explore how consumerism and immaterial labor fuel the fast fashion industry. Academic sources will allow insight into immaterial labor, online advertising, and how romantic individualism can be applied to influencers’ ability to push consumers to specific goods. Outside literature will help elaborate on three specific categories of consumerism and immaterial labor that will be explored in more depth: the global apparel industry, fashion trends and the effects they have on the fast fashion industry, and consumer activism around the fast fashion industry. This research is centered around the question of how exactly immaterial labor and consumerism fuel the capitalist fast-fashion industry. With the knowledge gained through literature on the global apparel industry, romantic individualism, advertising, capitalism, fashion trends, and consumer activism, it will be applied to real-life examples of how consumers feel when browsing, purchasing, and wearing SHEIN clothing. In addition, feedback will be collected regarding viewpoints of the company with the recognition of sweatshop labor and labor exploitation. Immaterial Labor, Advertising, and Romantic Individualism “The business celebrity system fosters the illusion that the fruits of corporate manufacture are the product of unique, talented individuals, not the global systems of manufacture” (Streeter, 3109). In the fashion industry, clothing is associated with the name you hear or the face you see wearing it. For designer brands, that could be Christian Dior, Versace, or Steve Madden. On the contrary, fast fashion brands like SHEIN that do not have any name attached to the brand are associated with those who show off the clothes: social media influencers. There is a kind of romantic individualization happening between followers and the influencers who show off their purchases. A popular move among many influencers is to film vlogs showing off their “hauls,” which feature items such as clothes, food, or make-up. SHEIN hauls are very common amongst influencers appealing to younger followers who can only afford fast fashion clothes while in
Donatello 67 and “no” answers, all for varying reasons. One consumer responded, “I would say it definitely makes me question making purchases. I acknowledge those working conditions are absolutely unacceptable, however they also have some of the cheapest prices and as a broke college student you do what you have to do to get trendy clothes at an affordable price.” The indirect aspects include the consumers purchasing the goods. Esbenshade notes that one might think the direct labor is much more important than the indirect, but in reality the indirect aspect holds the key for production. The global apparel industry consists of labor, raw materials, the company, trading, shipping, stores, and consumers. Without consumerism, however, there is no need for the rest of the cycle. Within the global commodity chain, supply-driven innovations are linked with the ever- changing consumer behavior and demands. “Western retailers have increasingly pushed supply chain rationalization and improved channel integration to force manufacturers to be more responsive to cost, quality and speed of delivery requirements” (Taplin, 245). It was recognized that accelerated production makes it possible to sell inexpensive, fashionable clothing to young consumers in a globalized marketplace. Fast fashion brands like SHEIN, Zara, and H&M have thrived off being able to quickly and efficiently mass produce cheap clothing. Talpin finds that short lead times have proven to be essential to the success of the global fast fashion industry because the constant “newness” of their products encourage consumers to frequently visit the store and websites for new offerings. This results in fast turnover times and low inventory costs, which allows companies like SHEIN to price their clothing extremely low and be a major competitor in the mass-market based on cost. These findings can be backed up with evidence from the questionnaire. When asked, “as a consumer, are there any factors that heavily influence your purchases,” all 25 consumers included price as an influential factor in their purchasing decisions. Quality and delivery time were the following two most popular answers. These findings correspond with Talpin’s research as fast fashion companies aim to be more responsive to cost, quality, and the speed of delivery.
68 Comm-Entary 2021- 2022 Fashion Trends and Sustainability Given that the fast fashion industry is always changing, keeping up with fashion trends has proven to be a hefty task for companies. Being “trendy” is something that many young people, especially high school and college-aged girls, hold in high esteem. There will always be a cuter top, a new hairstyle, or a fashion statement color resurrected from the dead. This puts an immense amount of pressure on companies to be up to date with fashion trends and produce clothes that will be appealing to the public. What we wear matters so much because of the statement that clothes make. Quoting Pierre Bourdieu, “taste classifies, and it classifies the classifier,” which means that how we judge others based on what we think is “tasteful” in turn defines ourselves and our own taste. “Clothes are our initial and most basic tool of communication. They convey our social and economic status, our occupation, our ambition, our self-worth” (Thomas, 2). The desire to start every day with trendy clothes shows how we wish to present ourselves to others. It is up to the fashion companies to provide clothing options that are trendy and up to date to align with consumers’ fashion sense. Data collected from the questionnaire shows that SHEIN has been able to keep up with fashion trends, as 100% of consumers noted that they were able to find trendy pieces on the site. Zara, another fast fashion clothing company, found ways of “expediting the design, manufacture and distribution of garments in 2-5 weeks to meet the demand for what is actually selling” (Talpin, 255). This shows just how rapid the turnover must be for companies to stay on top of the latest trends. However, the flip side of constantly producing new items means that the “out of fashion” clothes are not desired by consumers anymore. More often than not, companies over produce clothing items since there is never any indication as to how long trends will stay in style or how quickly they will die out. Fashion trends are described by Joy et al in Fashion Trends, Sustainability, and the Ethical Appeal of Luxury Brands as “running their course with lightning speed, with today’s latest styles swiftly trumping yesterday’s, which have already been consigned to the trash bin” (Joy et al, 273). The unsustainability of fast fashion, specifically keeping up with trends, has become a major
70 Comm-Entary 2021- 2022 In the case of the fast fashion industry, most activism is aimed at calling out the low- wage, sweatshop labor. As has been established, there are many other factors that should also be addressed that contribute to the global apparel industry’s production process. Andrew Ross’s The Quandaries of Consumer-Based Labor Activism: A low-wage case study explores anti-sweatshop activism and highlights the mixed results in his findings. “Nothing exposes corporate greed more than highlighting the gulf between the meager wages paid to production workers, toiling under life threatening conditions, and the lavish profits enjoyed by retailers and brand firms” (Ross, 773). Activists aim to target the emotions of all who will listen by highlighting the narrative of the production workers who get paid “meager wages” and work in “life threatening conditions.” Conclusion Each aspect of this research is directly or indirectly interconnected with one another. The consumer begins and ends the processes of the production cycle as changes in consumer behavior can quickly affect production. The fast fashion industry thrives on being able to have quick turn over times to keep up with the ever-changing fashion trends. Creating a system that can have high production at low costs, which allows for low prices, opens up the doors for a more inclusive consumer base, specifically targeting high school and college aged women. Using the immaterial labor provided by influencers and online advertising has boosted exposure for companies like SHEIN because of Gen Z’s inherent need for convenience. Having online ads on Instagram for specific articles of clothing, or direct product links posted by influencers, makes it so easy to reach a specific item. It is unappealing to have to search for a company and aimlessly scroll through thousands of items. It is much more appealing to be given direction as to what is tasteful or in style by an influencer you admire. As mentioned, the success of the industry is based on meeting the demands of the consumers, even if it does mean sacrificing the ethics and values centered around being sustainable and providing safe and healthy working conditions for production line workers. Meanwhile, there is extensive
Donatello 71 activism happening around the fast fashion industry. Aside from the fact that there is room for improvement when it comes to acknowledging the role consumers play in the industry, labor activism has raised awareness about the injustices of sweatshops. Based on extensive research and the consumer feedback questionnaire, it can be concluded that immaterial labor and consumerism do in fact drive the capitalist fast fashion industry. Without the promotion from influencers and purchasing habits from consumers, the production industry would function much differently.
Donatello 73 Streeter, T. (2015). Steve Jobs, Romantic Individualism, and the Desire for Good Capitalism. Internal Journal of Communication 9. pp. 3106-3120. Taplin, I. M. (2014). Global commodity chains and fast fashion: How the apparel industry continues to re-invent itself. Competition & Change , 18 (3), 246–264. https://doi.org/10.1179/1024529414z. Thomas, D. (2019). Introduction. Fashionopolis: Why What We Wear Matters. Penguin Random House LLC. pp. 1-12.
