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E-Land, Musinsa apologize for selling 'goose down jumper' with mostly duck feathers

Published: 07 Jan. 2025, 18:48 Updated: 07 Jan. 2025, 19:14

KIM JU-YEON
[email protected]

Fashion brand Who.A.U issued a recall, halted sales and is currently processing refunds for its “Goose Down Jumper” jacket after finding that its lining consisted of 30 percent goose feathers and 70 percent duck feathers instead of the 80 percent goose feathers that was advertised. [SCREEN CAPTURE]

Casualwear brand Who.A.U confirmed that one of its down jackets did not contain the promised proportion of goose feathers, in yet another case of puffer coats failing to meet the standards of Korean consumers.

A customer first sounded the alarm about the deceptive jacket, named the Goose Down Jumper, on Dec. 28, 2024. The jumper's description on the website indicated that goose feathers accounted for 80 percent of the insulation in its coat.

The customer voiced suspicions about the insulated material in the comments section on the item's brand page, asking if the filling was composed 100 percent polyester, as the tag indicated, rather than goose feathers.

Customers first raised suspicions that the lining material was not what they'd been promised after finding that the jacket’s tag indicated that the pocketing fabric was 100 percent polyester. [SCREEN CAPTURE]

Fashion and retail firm E-Land World, Who.A.U's parent company, admitted, following the complaint, that the jumper's insulation was actually 30 percent goose feathers and 70 percent duck feathers.

“We trusted our overseas partner’s verification of quality and neglected our own inspections of the products,” CEO Cho Dong-joo wrote in a notice posted to the fashion brand’s website on Monday. “We will strengthen our quality monitoring system across all processes […] to prevent the incident from reoccurring.”

E-Land World apologized and promised full refunds to customers who had purchased the down jacket as well as points that can be used like cash on Who.A.U’s official website. Who.A.U has stopped selling the puffer jacket and has recalled all models. The jumper was also sold on major e-commerce platform Musinsa, prompting the platform to put out a notice on Tuesday that it would recall and refund all purchased items.

Musinsa implemented a “three strikes and you’re out” policy for sellers on its platforms following the controversy surrounding its listed brands for falsely advertising their products. The shopping platform now requires new sellers or vendors starting to sell cashmere or down products on Musinsa to submit a quality verificiation from a professional agency. [SCREEN CAPTURE]

This isn't the first instance of fashion retailers running into trouble for misleading outwear specifications. Musinsa also recently cracked down on its listed brands for selling down jackets that did not meet their advertised criterion, sparking widespread distrust among consumers looking to buy the item.

Lafudge Store, a clothing brand that sells products on Musinsa, was caught selling a duck down jacket advertised to contain 80 percent in feathers that actually only contained 3 percent of the material and instead consisted mainly of polyester. The brand processed refunds for all purchases of the product and has since been ordered to leave the platform and another marketplace owned by Musinsa, 29CM, by April.

Other brands listed on Musinsa including Fairplay142, Intempomood and Dimitri Black were also revealed to have falsely advertised the proportion of feathers in their down jackets, while a different brand was caught selling a “cashmere muffler” containing less than 1 percent cashmere.

A down jacket needs to contain at least 75 percent in feathers, per Korea Consumer Agency policy, in order to receive the designation.

Many of the brands had received financial investments or other forms of support, such as exclusive launches, from Musinsa and grown mutually with the platform.

Musinsa implemented a “three strikes and you’re out” policy for sellers on its platforms following the controversy. Brands who are caught falsely advertising their used materials at least three times are now kicked off the store. The platform also said it would require vendors who plan to sell down or cashmere products to submit a quality verification report issued by a professional agency.

BY KIM JU-YEON [[email protected]]