The Chinese clothing chain Shein used pictures of Finnish Emilia without permission

The slandered, Chinese ultra-fast fashion chain Shein has used social media photos of a Finnish influencer without permission in its own sales announcements.

Influencer from Helsinki and making his own podcast Emilia Aaltonen29, discovered that Shein had unauthorizedly used photos she posted on her public Instagram account in her sales ads.

He himself got the information from his followers, when dozens of them contacted Aaltone with private messages and screenshots.

– I was asked if I have started to cooperate with this questionable Chinese chain or why their website shows photos of my outfits in the sales announcements, he tells Tyyli.com.

This was not true, as Aaltonen had specifically refused cooperation proposals with the same chain the previous year.

– They approached me at the beginning of 2023 last year with cooperation proposals, which I did not participate in for several reasons. The fees for the proposals were also substandard, only worth a few tens. It’s sad that my photos are still being used on their website anyway, Aaltonen explains the situation.

– Now I’m in a situation where I have to patch up and explain the situation embarrassingly, even though I haven’t even entered into a single collaboration with the entire questionable actor and I don’t want myself to be connected to this chain, he stresses.

At that time, Ketju suggested that Aaltonen produce images specifically for their own website and not for their own social media channels.

Now, however, Emilia’s photos have been used without permission and without compensation. The photos come from Emilia’s Instagram and have only been slightly edited. For example, the color of the pants has been changed in the sales announcement and the logo of the garment that appeared in the original image has been removed from Shein’s sales announcement.

– Sometimes they have even used collaboration photos or outfit photos that I have made with other clothing brands, in which I have separately marked the clothing brands that I am wearing. None of these are even from Shein, but completely other brands, Aaltonen says.

It is therefore possible to conclude that some of the outfit photos used in Shein’s sales announcements are not even photos of the clothes they sell, but come from somewhere else.

Aaltonen has tried to get in touch with Shein about the incident both through the chain’s social media channels in private messages and directly by e-mail without getting a response.

This is not an isolated case, as several photos of Aaltonen have been used. In addition, he has also received contacts from other foreign influencer colleagues who have experienced the same fate, i.e. they too have found their own photos in Shein’s sales announcements without permission.

If the image is not visible, you can view it from here.

– My followers ask if I’m going to sue the company and I don’t really know how to proceed here. This is a really sad situation, Aaltonen commented.

As Iltalehti has previously reported, the ultra-fast fashion chain Shein is not in the middle of an uproar for the first time.