It's frustrating to hear politicians vehemently advocating for traditional family values or lecturing young people not to use drugs, only to discover that their own personal lives don't align with their rhetoric, and often involve very loose interpretations of family dynamics and secret indulgence in substance abuse.
Similarly, it's bewildering when institutions teach the importance of ethical behavior to students, but fail to uphold those principles through their actions. For instance, numerous fashion and design institutions offer courses on sustainability, waste reduction and alternative materials, urging students to find solutions for a better future. However, there are instances where these institutions fall short of practicing what they preach.
In May, ultra-fast fashion retailer Shein launched a scholarship program and curriculum called Shein X Project Launchpad in collaboration with the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising (FIDM).
As part of its Shein X designer incubator program, this initiative aimed to provide 12 selected students with $40,000 scholarships, along with the opportunity to create 5-10-piece clothing collections to be sold on Shein's platform.
The curriculum spanned 20 weeks, with a first part focused on market research, design development, fit, and production. Upon completion in October, students will be able to their collections on the Shein platform, earning commissions and retaining ownership of their creations.
The students were chosen for this opportunity through a selection process that considered various factors including their academic achievements, portfolio of work, résumé, recommendations from their instructors, and a brief video submission in which they explained their motivations for applying to the program.
"Shein X Project Launchpad aims to launch these students into successful careers in the fashion industry," George Chiao, US president of Shein announced in an official press release published when the announcement was given. "By providing scholarships and access to Shein's resources and customer network, we hope to remove some of the barriers aspiring designers typically face and provide these talented young people with the tools and support they need to help them achieve their dreams."
Barbara Bundy, FIDM vice president of education, added in the same press release: "We are very grateful for the generous scholarship opportunities Shein has brought our students to further their education. Through this partnership, the students will enhance their design talent and creative vision, and more fully understand the business side of fashion and how a product is made end-to-end."
The announcement in May preceded Shein's sponsored trip for influencers to China: in June a group of influencers was indeed invited to visit one of their factories in China, but their online reports ended up sparking controversy on social media, as they were all favorable, suggesting in one case that consumers were being presented with a particular anti-Shein narrative in the US.
Since its introduction to the US in 2017, Shein has actually risen as the most popular ultra-fast fashion brand in the country, winning the favour of customers with its extremely affordable prices and trendy designs. In May 2021, the Shein mobile app became the most downloaded shopping app in the U.S., and, in May 2022, it outperformed both TikTok and Instagram, becoming the most downloaded mobile app in any category.
Yet, in the last few years, Shein has faced criticism for a variety of unethical practices, these include poor working conditions, the presence of high levels of toxic chemicals in their clothing, mishandling of customer data and plagiarism of designs from independent creators such as fashion, graphic designers and photographers.
In July Shein was sued on copyright infringement grounds by three independent artists - Krista Perry, Larissa Martinez, and Jay Baron - who accused the company of large-scale and systematic intellectual property theft. The artists claim that Shein not only copied but also produced, distributed, and sold exact replicas, cheap versions, of their creative work, alleging that such infringement constitutes racketeering under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO Act).
Besides, in 2021 a Swiss watchdog group, Public Eye, found that Shein's supplier factories had unsafe conditions, with workers enduring long hours, lack of contracts, and fire hazards. Moreover, in the documentary "Inside the Shein Machine," aired by Channel 4 in the UK last year, Shein's factories in Guangzhou were exposed, revealing low wages, excessive working hours, and harsh penalties for errors. Shein has also faced scrutiny for allegedly using cotton from Xinjiang, a region associated with human rights abuses and with Uyghurs' forced labor.
Last but not least, Shein's environmental footprint raises concerns as its ultra-fast fashion model leads to unsustainable practices. The lack of transparency in its production makes it challenging to measure the true extent of its environmental impact, but we know that Shein introduces a staggering 6,000 items to its catalog every week.
While the FIDM partnership appeared to support young talents, it is hard to see only the positive sides of this. It is indeed puzzling that an institution that organizes courses about sustainability in fashion, aligned with this company. The university has a history of promoting sustainability in the fashion industry, housing an "Innovative Materials Collection" (that includes bionic yarn, and biosynthetics, mycelium and recycled cassette tape) on campus. Additionally, they introduced a course on sustainability in their Merchandising and Marketing Program in 2021, emphasizing social responsibility.
Sure, it is hard to resist money when they throw it at you. It is hard to provide a honest review of a runway show when a fashion house has paid for your flight, put you in a five star hotel and given you a bag of goodies or provided you with a runway invitation that incorporates an expensive item (yet people nowadays are more aware of the difference between reporting and being paid for a post...).
This temptation may be even more difficult to resist in case of institutions facing financial difficulties. Like other colleges, FIDM, faced recent challenges, from closing satellite campuses to being placed on probation by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges Senior College and University Commission in 2021 over concerns about financial viability (to address these issues, in April this year it merged with Arizona State University, forming a new partnership (ASU FIDM), but layoffs continued, indicating persistent problems).
It is also hard for institutions to refuse scholarship partnerships when education is becoming increasingly expensive, placing a heavy burden on many families (this means that education may in a not so distant future become accessible primarily to those wealthy enough to afford it, regardless of their skills or genuine interest in learning...).
However, there's concern about not practicing the values you teach, it is indeed essential for educational institutions and brands to align their actions with the values they promote to avoid sending conflicting messages to young generations. Shein made a very generous offer, but there are huge conglomerates out there with better credentials that could offer the same amount of money and there are smaller brands that may offer less, but that may prove more beneficial to the school's reputation. Behind Shein's offer there isn't indeed the will to create a better world, but to create a better reputation for itself, just like they tried to do by inviting influencers to China.
Yet young people may be inexperienced but they aren't certainly stupid: Lexy Silverstein, a fourth year digital marketing student at FIDM, launched for example a campaign on Change.org against the partnership (signed, at the time of writing this post, by over 4,600 people). In the message accompanying it (but read also her letter accompanying the petition), she states: "One of the reasons I chose this college in Los Angeles was because of their sustainability classes. I was proud to share that FIDM was named one of the Top Ten Sustainable Fashion Schools in the World. So how hypocritical is it for my school to partner with a fashion brand that has such an unsustainable business model?"
While Silverstein is fighting back and asking us all to join in, there may be students who may have taken part in the scholarship programme and who may have opened their eyes about the industry or who may use the discrepancies behind this story to take from now on more informed decisions about their future careers and values.
But, the focus in this story is not on the students, but on the institution: FIDM is not the first university to partner with Shein. In 2021, the company established a collaboration with Indiana University to create career opportunities for international students. This partnership faced similar skepticism and eventually the school cut its ties with the brand just months later. But the practice extends to other sectors and universities: fossil fuel companies provided, for example, research funding to 27 US universities (including Harvard and MIT) between 2010 and 2020.
It will prove extremely challenging to persuade students of the value of our teachings if our actions contradict what we impart to them. How can we encourage them to embrace originality, avoid copying, and engage in thorough research on organic textiles and innovative materials when we preach sustainability, but then we align ourselves with the same retailers that have been accused of multiple copyright infringements, with the same companies that promote overconsumption and that push us to indulge in the binge-buying behavior exemplified by the "#sheinhaul" videos? (ultra-fast fashion retailers like Temu encourage us to "shop like a millionaire," but the reality is that we are merely acquiring a heap of disposable goods that won't last, spending more and increasing environmental pollution...).
These considerations should serve as food for thought for educational institutions and educators. To nurture the next generation of designers effectively, we must establish coherence between our teachings and actions; otherwise, we risk of becoming like those hypocritical politicians who preach morality but actually live in an immorality play.
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