Is Missguided ethical?
Missguided hit the headlines in 2022 after the business collapsed, allegedly resulting in workers and suppliers not getting paid for months' worth of orders they had already completed for the company.
Following its bankruptcy, Missguided is now owned by Elite Depot Limited, the parent company for the Chinese fast fashion giant Shein.
In this profile, we look at the ethics of Missguided, Shein, and the brands’ owner.
Ethical Consumer always rates company groups as a whole, rather than individual brands, and our research highlights many ethical issues with Elite Depot Limited and its subsidiaries, including accusations of forced labour in supply chains, failure to tackle emissions, and likely use of tax avoidance strategies.
Below we outline some of these issues. To see the full detailed stories, and Missguided’s overall ethical rating, please sign in or subscribe.
Little action to cut emissions
Missguided and Shein are major fast fashion brands – adding tens or even hundreds of thousands of new designs to their websites every year. Outlets like Shein rapidly introduce new items, monitor consumer trends through digital analytics, and swiftly escalate production on popular pieces.
Fast fashion brands like these have therefore fueled a quick purchase and quick disposal approach to clothing, in an industry which is currently responsible for up to 10% of global carbon emissions every year.
Missguided scores very badly in Ethical Consumer’s climate rating, based on the lack of climate action taken by the Shein company group.
Ethical Consumer looked for ways in which Shein Group was reducing its emissions, but found that the company only made vague statements and did not appear to have set a target for reducing its climate impacts in line with vital international goals.
TIME magazine criticised Shein in January 2023, stating, "the company leaves about 6.3 million tons of carbon dioxide a year in its trail—a number that falls well below the 45% target to reduce global carbon emissions by 2030, which the U.N. has said is necessary for fashion companies to implement to help limit global warming.”
Accusations of workers’ right abuses
Missguided and its sister brand Shein score poorly in Ethical Consumer’s workers category.
When Shein was rated in November 2023, it was found to have a supply chain policy in place covering some basic criteria like no child labour. However, the policy overlooked important factors like paying the living wage and limiting the number of hours employees are expected to work to under 48 a week. The policy also only appeared to apply to direct suppliers, when the workers most at risk of exploitative working conditions are probably further down in its supply chain.
In August 2024, Shein publicly stated that it had found two cases of child labour in its supply chain the previous year. The company stated that it had temporarily suspended orders from the suppliers involved, and had resumed sourcing from them once they had made efforts to tackle the problem. As the sister company, Missguided also lost marks over the allegations.
Civil society groups have repeatedly accused Shein of other abuses in its supply chain. In November 2021, for example, investigative outlet Public Eye published a report, which found that workers in China supplying Shein were doing 75 hour weeks – which violated the country’s laws.
Three years later, in May 2024, Public Eye published a follow-up report, which stated that abuses were ongoing. The group accused Shein of using a highly-flexible workforce, which included over 1,000 contractors, to produce its garments at extremely low costs, thereby eroding conditions in the supply chain.
Shein responded to the allegations, stating that long working hours in the sector were a "common challenge that brands, manufacturers, and other ecosystem players must work together to address".
Allegations of forced labour in cotton supply chain
Shein has also faced accusations that its products contain cotton from the Uyghur Xinjing Autonomous Region of China – for which Missguided also loses marks. State-sanctioned forced labour is routinely used in cotton harvesting and processing in the Xinjiang region, as part of the Chinese government’s suppression of the Uyghur Muslim ethnic group. Clothing companies have therefore been urged to cease sourcing from the region.
In November 2022, Bloomberg published an investigation titled ‘Shein’s Cotton Tied to Chinese Region Accused of Forced Labor’. It stated, “A US attempt to ban imports of cotton linked to forced labor in China contains a loophole large enough for a multibillion-dollar business to pass through: clothing from Shein, the Chinese online retail giant and social-media phenomenon that ships fast-fashion apparel directly to consumers.
“Laboratory testing conducted for Bloomberg News on two occasions this year found that garments shipped to the US by Shein were made with cotton from China’s Xinjiang region.”
“In a statement, Shein didn’t dispute Bloomberg’s test results or say whether it uses cotton from Xinjiang. The fast-fashion retailer said it takes steps in all its global markets ‘to ensure we comply with local laws and regulations.’”
Shein said it had a zero-tolerance policy for ‘forced labor’, and later stated that “only 2.1%” of its cotton tested positive for unapproved cotton.”
Vague animal welfare policy
Missguided sells a range of clothes including animal products such as leather and wool, while other brands owned by Elite Depot Limited also sell animal products such as mohair and angora.
Shein’s animal welfare policy states, “We prefer for our suppliers to source according to recognized third party standards”. However, it does not say what proportion of animal products used are actually certified by any of the listed standards. Other statements in the policy are vague and do not set clear criteria. For example, it states that it expects suppliers to “Work to align with our values of animal welfare”, but does not make clear whether this is a binding criteria.
As such, Shein and Missguided were not considered to have adequate policies in place to ensure animal welfare in their supply chains.
Politics and finance
Missguided’s parent company Elite Depot Limited scores poorly in Ethical Consumer’s tax conduct rating. The company is registered in the Cayman Islands, which is a tax haven.
Shein has also been criticised by multiple third parties for alleged tax avoidance.
This Is Money, a financial news site, stated in October 2021, “Chinese fashion giant Shein is exploiting tax perks to undercut Britain's online retailers”. According to the site, “Shein is free from Chinese VAT and consumer taxes and is subject to lower corporation taxes. These incentives are awarded to it for manufacturing in China and then only selling its goods outside the country. Arriving in the UK by post, the parcels are of such low value that they are not subject to import duties as they would be if the goods were delivered to British distribution centres in shipping containers – the method used by other big retailers.”
In July 2023, the clothing news site Fashion Network likewise reiterated the allegations based on the US parliamentary report. It stated that Shein and another Chinese retailer Temu “paid zero dollars” in US custom duties the previous year. “This has prompted a parliamentary enquiry to reveal that the two Chinese e-tailers are circumventing customs by sending hundreds of thousands of small shipments that fall below the customs tariff threshold”, it said.
Shein did not appear to have responded to either allegation.
The text above was written in July 2025, and most research was conducted in November and December 2023.
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