Fast Fashion Executives Make Millions, But Workers Still Struggle
Here’s how much some of the top fast fashion players make.
In March, Fashion Nova CEO Richard Saghian reportedly bought 'The One,' a $141 million mansion in Los Angeles. I don’t know what’s in the mansion, or why it has that absurd price tag, but one thing that I took away from this story is that Saghian has made a lot of money on his fast fashion business. Of course, he’s not the only one either. Fast fashion CEOs and founders find themselves on the tops of Forbes lists around the globe, with some worth billions of dollars. Meanwhile, workers throughout the supply chain to the retail floor deal with wage theft, unfair labor practices, and lack of cost of living salary increases.
While there certainly has been some progress made through worker organizing and advocacy, CEOs and founders built wealth for years before any changes were made for their workers. So in the spirit of transparency, below are several fashion founders and CEOs’ net worth, and what’s been going on with the labor side of their business.
Richard Saghian, Fashion Nova CEO and Founder - $710 Million (Forbes)
FashionNova is based in Los Angeles, where workers have recently fought and won to make garment industry wage theft illegal. Prior to this historic victory, workers told The New York Times that while they were sewing clothing for brands like Fashion Nova, they were making below minimum wage. The brand denied the claims, but workers insisted that exploitation was prevalent.
Do Won Chang, Forever21 founder - $3 Billion (Forbes)
In 2017, before Forever21 declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy, workers claimed they were making “pennies” per item they made according to the Los Angeles Times. What’s more is that during the bankruptcy, the brand decided to close several stores, resulting in the layoffs of hundreds of retail workers.
Karl-Johan Persson, H&M heir - $1.4 Billion (Forbes)
Via Getty
In February 2021, garment worker Jeyasre Kathiravel failed to come home from her shift at Natchi Apparels, a supplier for H&M. It was later discovered that she was murdered by her manager at the factory. Women at the factory reported that they had been experiencing sexual harassment from management, but nothing was being done. In 2022, H&M finally came to an agreement to stop gender-based violence that is rampant on the factory floor.
Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder - $132 billion (Forbes)
Jeffrey Bezos may have started his empire on books, but Amazon has become a huge part of the fashion space in the last decade. In fact, according to Statisa, 11.5 percent of all apparel sales in the United States are on the platform. Recently, Amazon’s biggest labor story is the push to unionize by workers in the United States, who say there needs to be more safety. Nineteen workers have died at Amazon facilities since 2013.
Mahmud Kamani, BooHoo founder - $905 Million (The Times)
In 2020, a review of the Boohoo’s Leicester factory found that workers were paid well below the legal minimum wage. It said the brand "capitalized on the commercial opportunities offered by lockdown" but did not protect workers during this time period. In the years since the review came out, the brand has said it’s trying to fix its working practices by opening up a new facility that employs around 100 people.
Tadashi Yanai, founder of Fast Retailing (parent company of Uniqlo) $861 Million (Forbes)
In 2015, the Jaba Garmindo factory in Indonesia, where Uniqlo made clothing, went bankrupt — leaving workers without pay. In the years since and especially during the pandemic, workers have been fighting for what they are owed. In April 2022, they wrote an open letter to Yanai asking for pay: “We made the clothes that made you rich, but we are owed $5.5 million for making them. We have fought for 7 years for the severance pay we are legally-owed, and we are still fighting. We are exhausted and in debt, but still you refuse to pay up. Jaba Garmindo, the Indonesian factory you sourced from, went bankrupt in 2015 so there is no factory management for us to demand this money from, there is only you. We are asking you to do what should have been done 7 years ago: pay us the $5.5 million we are legally owed.”
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