June 06, 2015

THE TRUE COST

Have you seen the film yet? NO? What have you been waiting for.

The True Cost Shines A Light On The Human Price Of Your Bargain Shopping.

I was pleased and very honored to have been one of the Sustainable designer contributing to the making of this documentary.

with The True Cost Crew in Haiti

Last year August I got an email from someone in LA looking to interview me in my Brooklyn studio, it was the director Andrew Morgan. Since I was in Haiti at that time still, he told me he would like to come there to do the interview and at the same time looking at the country and the impact of second hands clothes, will also interview factory workers. I had no idea that this documentary was going to be so big and full of awareness.

A question for you dear readers; How many times have you hit up a store last-minute to pick up a new dress for a date or the weekend just because you felt like it? When was the last time you thumbed through a clearance rack just to see if there was something there you might want to buy? Have you ever left a store with something you might not have gone in for because it was ’Buy One, Get One Free’? If these shopping scenarios are familiar to you, you should definitely watch “The True Cost.” Maybe even before you finish reading this.
“The True Cost” is a documentary about the current state of the fast fashion industry and the very human expense attached to those cheap clothes. It follows the supply chain that makes the clothes in so many of our closets—ever heard of Forever 21, Zara, H&M, Topshop, Gap, or Uniqlo? It shines a light on the human faces and human problems at each step, from the cotton farmers in Texas and India developing brain tumors and other health complications from the liberal use of pesticides on their crops to the textile factory workers in Bangladesh risking their lives in unsafe working conditions.

Amidst these heart-breaking stories, the documentary confronts you with horrifying facts. Did you know that the fashion industry is the No. 2 most polluting industry in the world, second to the oil industry? Or that the average American creates 82 lbs. of textile waste a year? Did you know that only a small percentage of the clothes you donate actually get sold in thrift stores and the rest are packed and shipped to places like Port-au-Prince, Haiti where they pollute the land and water because most of it isn’t biodegradable? Well, yes I can tell you a lot more on that. Since I have been in Haiti I have been purchasing most of those unwanted jeans, bags and reclaimed them into new items. More on that later, because I want you to focus on THE TRUE COST Documentary now as it is very important for you to understand what is going on.

A former tannery worker in Kanpur, India, is in the film. The leather tanning process exposes workers to highly toxic chemicals.

("The True Cost")

The film, which opens May 29 in theaters, on video on demand and iTunes, was shot in 13 countries, from the slums of Dhaka, Bangladesh, to the cotton fields near Lubbock, Texas. It includes interviews with fashion designers, factory workers and owners, cotton farmers, labor activists, academic experts on consumption, sustainability and more, to shine a light on the "perfectly engineered nightmare" that feeds shoppers' insatiable appetites for cheap chic.

"The day I read about the [collapse], I looked down and realized I had never thought about where clothes come from," says Andrew Morgan, who lives in Sherman Oaks. "When you grow up looking only at a store window and only thinking about your side of the equation, it leads to a very dangerous set of effects."

80 billion pieces of clothing are purchased worldwide each year, which is 400% more than a decade ago. Three out of four of the worst garment factory disasters in history happened in 2012 and 2013. And as the death toll increased, so did the profits. The year after the Rana Plaza disaster was the fast-fashion industry's most profitable yet, and the world's top four fast-fashion brands — Zara, H&M, Fast Retailing (which owns Uniqlo) and Gap — had sales in 2014 of more than $72 billion, compared with $48 billion in 2013.

Watch the trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaGp5_Sfbss

Some other must see videos

The Rana Plaza Crash4s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Fkhzdc4ybw

The full story of the Rana Plaza: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEbFnAMHHps

Would You Still Buy That Dress:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_mA9L1DSr8