According to an online report, “The campaign group Labour Behind the Label alleged last Tuesday that factories in Leicester making Boohoo garments had put staff at risk of contracting Covid-19 by pressuring them to work without proper personal protective equipment (PPE) or social distancing.”
Mahmud Kamani, who followed his father's advice of going to work and forgetting to win a lottery has turned the online fast-fashion empire into a £4.9bn entity — more than Asos, and more than twice as much as Marks & Spencer.
Boohoo.com and its eight sub-brands, that include Karen Millen and Pretty Little Thing, had a turnover of £1.2bn last year with about 14 million customers. Many of these customers were drawn in by celebrities like Kylie Jenner and Nicole Scherzinger.
Kamani sold t-shirts and shorts worth £3. According to the Sunday Time Rich List, he stands to net a further £50 million bonus if the group’s value passes £7.6bn by 2023.
The Labour group published a report shortly after health secretary Matt Hancock confirmed that Leicester would be put under a total lockdown. Accounting for three quarters of the city’s textile production, it stated that it had emailed its suppliers urging them to deliver hefty orders on time by adhering to health and safety guidelines.
However, Boohoo denied the allegations. An undercover story in Sunday Times investigation found that the workers in Leicester are making Boohoo clothes for as little as £3.5 an hour, less than half the £9.72 minimum wage.
An online store described an undercover reporter’s experience of filming himself packing clothes with Nasty Gal labels, one of Boohoo’s sub-brands, at the Jaswal Fashions factory. The site was open during the local lockdown with no additional hygiene or social distancing measures in place. Nasty Gal said it had a “zero tolerance approach to incidences of modern slavery” and would investigate Jaswal Fashions, which was not a direct supplier.
Concerns over Leicester, whose factories account for about 40% of Boohoo’s production, lead to the question that has hung over the business since it floated in 2014: how can it sell items often priced at less than £10 each, take a 54% gross profit margin, and not mistreat manufacturers?
Boohoo’s shares now stand at 387.5p. It is by far the biggest company on AIM, the junior market. The test-and-repeat model continues on a grander scale, with 2,000 lines added each week.