Fashion Tragedy: Documentary Focuses on Human, Environmental Costs of Fast-Fashion

The horrors of the Rana Plaza factory collapse shocked the world and brought into clear focus the risks garment factory workers in developing countries often face just to put food on their tables. In a new documentary, The True Cost, filmmaker Andrew Morgan takes a sweeping look at the human and environmental costs of the fast-fashion industry.

According LA Times/Tribune critic Booth Moore, the film includes interviews with designers, workers, owners and others across the supply chain that feeds the garment industry. "The film puts a human face on how the world’s 40 million garment workers are feeling the squeeze as developing countries, desperate for economic opportunity the business provides, fail to enforce wage and labor laws, while big fashion brands keep their hands clean," Moore writes.

Behind it all are consumers driven to excess. According to the film, 80 billion pieces of clothing are purchased worldwide each year. Three of the four worst garment factory disasters in history were in 2012 and 2013, yet the industry continues to set profit records.

“What we need now is a greater awareness of what’s at stake. It’s not just brainstorm time, because there has been pioneering already. To use a business term, now we’re ready to scale,” Morgan says.

To read more from Morgan about the film and what prompted him to make it, read this Wall Street Journal interview. Learn more about the movie here.