“True Cost” premiered on Tuesday, June 16 at The Francesca Beale Theater presented by Dean & Deluca. Fashionistas like Anne Hathaway, Anna Wintour, Isabella Rossellini, Yigal Azrouel, Derek Blasberg joined Andrew Morgan (director), Livia Firth (executive producer), Michael Ross (producer) and Laura Piety (producer) at the special event.
Andrew Morgan takes the audience on a journey through several different countries as he asks industry professionals like designers, activists, farmers, and factory owners their opinions on how the fast fashion production process affects the industry as a whole. He begins the film by asking a very basic question, “Where do our clothes come from?” In a trillion dollar industry that provides countless jobs and garments, it’s ironic that more consumers aren’t asking these questions already. With the fast paced technological world we live in, everything can be found online, everything. So why are people not asking questions about how and where clothes are made? In the last few years alone, clothes have gotten cheaper and cheaper. As most know, according to economics, there is no such thing as a free lunch. The film explores the various factors that aren’t taken into account when the price tags on clothes are marked. Factory work wages, environmental resources used, pollution factors are rarely measured. Morgan shows the human cost of manufacturing in India where harmful chemicals from clothes have been discarded into the river that provides drinking water for the village nearby. The human cost? The countless cases of jaundice and impaired human development cases in children that have increased over the years. So if the price were to be re-evaluated in that case, it would be much higher than the $20 that is paid for a fake leather skirt at either H&M or Forever 21.
But the true question remains, “Will this film be able to change anything?” The trillion dollar global industry can’t just be scrapped away without a collapse of several economies, but rather needs to me remedied. Morgan succeeded in showing that the industry is in fact a viable ecosystem that connects people from both third and first world countries and affects every part of the world not just the big players like the United States, China, and Bangladesh. But while most thought provoking and well directed documentaries succeed in capturing the audiences’ attention for a while, they fall short in making a long term affect on the audience’s lives. Industry insiders have known the truths depicted in this film for years now. But will the consumer learning about these acts prompt a change in an industry? Also, how much will the prices really be affected if the workers are paid a living wage? But more over, why is that even a question? Why is price equated to human life, when human life should be seen as the paramount factor between the two. Another concept consumers need to know is that while fast fashion is definitely a culprit in causing worker wages to decrease, the same factories that produce fast fashion are oftentimes the same factories that produce higher end designer goods, ones that provide a much higher mark-up for the retailers as compared to the profit margin for fast fashion retailers. Morgan stated that he wanted “for people…to be able to connect the dots to stuff they already care about.” He succeeded in both finding answers to the questions he asked when he began this film and sharing his results with the world. Now the industry as a whole and consumers need to take action to remedy a situation that is doomed to collapse.
The film premieres on Netflix on June 29.
[slideshow]-Simran Pabla
Photo Credit: Kristina Bumphrey/StarPix