Reading week: The true cost documentary (Netflix)

Some written notes that I took whilst watching the documentary. I decided to write down the parts that I found interesting and learnt from watching this documentary.

The true cost documentary on Netflix is all about the links between consumer pressure for low-cost high fashion and the meagre existences of the sweatshop workers who produce those goods that are explored.

This documentary has been filmed in different places all over the world. It is based on all the background, people and places behind the clothes that we where.

• Lucy Seagal was a journalist and broadcaster in the UK. She realised she was obsessed and consumed with the environmental and the social impacts of the fashion industry for at least a decade.
• There used to be a fashion system, where individuals would go to spring/summer or winter shows. There has been a huge shift, that is now going towards only big business interests. 
• Instead of 2 seasons a year, it has been changed generally to 52 seasons a year. This is because within retails and in stores, we regularly are having new things being brought in every week. Fashion has created this so that the industry can shift for more and more products. 
• Fashion should never be seen as a disposable product.
• The fast fashion industry is having a huge impact in developing countries.
• The average American throws away 82 pounds of textile waste. Most of this waste is non biodegradable meaning it sits in landfills which releases harmful gases into air. 
• Fashion today is the most polluting industry on earth, second to the oil industry.
• Not only does fashion use so many natural resources but also creates environmental impacts which are not measured.

The Bangladesh building:

• The building in Bangladesh that collapsed was one of the biggest disasters that had happened in their country for a long time. One of the worst parts of it all was that the fashion garment makers had pointed out to managers many times 'that there are bad cracks in the building' that they work in. 
• Hundreds died and there was also many survivors with severe injuries. For example, one girl was walking down the stairs and when she felt the building start to collapse it was too late to escape. Her legs got caught under big parts of the building and she was trapped. She tried fighting to get out for a while but eventually stopped trying. With the hundreds of different thoughts and emotions running through her head in that moment, she didn't know what to think or feel. She eventually was found and the builders and workers managed to get her out and seek medical assistance. She ended up having to have both legs amputated.

Illinois USA - 

• Fashion has such a huge impact on our world. There is also huge amounts of research that fashion is also having an effect of us, the people who are buying the clothes. Many people tend to focus on the materialistic values such as money, image, status. The people that focus on these values tend to become more anxious, depressed and can often cause a lot of psychological problems. People tend to believe that these materialist values will help us to be happy, when really it is the opposite. 

California USA

• As awareness of fashions impact on our world is growing, there are many key leaders within the fashion industry who are beginning to question the impacts of a model that is built on careless production and endless consumption.
• Often people within the fashion industry, believe that the consumers are part of the big problem. Consumption is such a big problem, which is why people want to encourage consumers to really understand consumption and continuous decline for the health of our planet. 

ADVERTISEMENT

Advertisement is such a huge thing within the fashion industry. This is because a successful advert allows an audience and individuals needs to feel extremely satisfied, by consuming the product that is being advertised. Adverts want to make people believe that they will look amazing in the product that is being advertised or promoted. 

For example, shampoo adverts often show a model with bad hair, the model then uses the product and she then has amazing silky hair. 

• Business through advertising has pulled society along into this belief that happiness is based on stuff that true happiness can only really be achieved with annual, weekly or daily amount of stuff you bring into your life.

Haiti - 

• 10% of clothes that get donated to charities often don't get sold, they get shipped over to countries such as Haiti.
• Haiti often product cheap t-shirts that then get shipped over to the US to be sold. 

STELLA MCCARTNEY 

"The fashion industry really just needs to think, it needs to just stop and sort of look at how its been working in a conventional way and just sort of question it, challenge it." 

She said that as a designer that is what makes her job so exciting. Stella enjoys doing her job in a way that is not going to be as harmful to the planet, rather than just focusing on the colours for each season, and the design of a certain garment. 

People working within in the fashion industry want to make customers realise that they are in charge. This is because without the customer/consumer, fashion industry workers wouldn't have jobs, which is what makes it so important. 

Kanpur - India

• River ganga, in Kanpur is known to be one of the holiest rivers. It is extremely important for the 800 million Hindus as it serves the lifeline of north India.
• This river is currently being ruined, polluted and killed by the leather factories of Kanpur.
• Kanpur is the leather export capital of India.
• In Kanpur daily, more than 50 million litres of toxic waste gets poured out of local tanneries which contain chemicals to treat the leather, then flow into local farming and drinking water.
• In Kanpur, western brands are able to find cheap materials, while avoiding all accountability for the growing cost to human health and to the environment. 
• Their local environment is contaminated with pollutions and toxic chemicals. Peoples health are effective, causing people to have many health problems such as stomach ailments, certain cancers, skin pigmentations and so on. This is mainly down to the chromium and other chemicals in their drinking water and within the polluted air.

Livia Firth

• Livia has been calling for major changes within the fashion industry. She made headlines because she challenged and started something called the 'Green carpet challenge'.
• She urged that celebs and top designers to  take part in more mindful forms of fashion.
• She went and spoke in a press conference in Denmark. She said that if fast fashion didn't exist then people wouldn't have to try and clean the mess of environmental destruction, social justice destruction that has been caused in the last 15 years of it existing.
• Fast fashion is all about being quick. All of the garment workers have to product fast and cheap products.
• Fashion in fact is making the majority of consumers a lot poorer, and in fact the only people that have an advantage is the owner of the fast fashion brand.

Cambodia: 

• Garment workers in Cambodia are getting very fed up and have had enough. Many citizens and people taking to the streets to demand a minimum wage increase in the country. 
• There were many protests on the streets, in which police had to come as crowds were getting way to busy and violent. There were even gunshots being heard in the distance, women screaming.
• One individual was killed and many injured. This was because of the clashes that were taking place between clothes factory workers and riot police in Cambodia.
• Two days straight, Cambodia was full of battles and fights. This is because workers within the textile industry continued to demand a minimum wage of at least $160. The government refused this demand and because of that 5 workers were killed, 23 arrested and more than 40 individuals injured.