Wien. More than 1.000 manual workers have died after the collapse of an insanitary garment factory in Dhaka (Bangladesh) in April 2013. Most pieces of clothing were intended for export trade to the U.S. and Europe. This horrible incident was the flashpoint for U.S. director Andrew Morgan to dedicate himself to the question: „What do the conditions our fashion is produced today look like? And which impact do these conditions have on poeple and nature?“ The result after „a two-year-lasting and live-changing process“ is a staggering documentary named „The True Cost„. In the following interview with the German online-magazine „da Hog’n“, Andrew Morgan reports about the dangers of low-budget-clothing – and about his awareness, „that we can do much, much better“.
„This is also a call to move production away from the fast fashion model“
Mr. Morgan: In your latest movie „The True Cost” you’re talking about the “reinvention of the fashion system”. In which way does that reinvention affect the way “we”, in the so-called “first world”, see clothes? And in which way does it affect the way clothes are produced?
It’s about seeing clothing as something beautifully made to be worn and loved and cared for. We should love the things we wear and the stories they are made from. This is also a call to move production away from the fast fashion model of endlessly cheaper ever more disposable products made at staggering costs to human beings and the planet and into a way of making fashion that care for all of the hands the touch each piece along the way.
It seems like our attitude towards clothing has changed almost overnight. Within a few years clothes inherited the status of a product for one-time usage, something easily disposable. How is such a sudden shift possible, which role does especially advertising and media play?
The shift has been dramatic, as a world we now consume 400% more clothes than we did just two decades ago. When surveyed recently women on average considered a piece of clothing old and worn out after less than three wears. Fashion has moved from something we treasure and treat well into something that is ever more disposable. This is the best case scenario for corporate consumer driven capitalistic world, ever more quantity of increasingly throw away type of products. The story that advertising is telling us over and over again re-afirms this myth of more and more stuff leading to promised happiness. The trouble is that myth is not only untrue but it is one that comes at a staggering cost to people and to this planet that is our home.
„We need to open a new conversation and develop other options“
Tremendously poor working conditions in the so-called “sweatshops” in South-East-Asia, but also in other “developing countries”, are frequently justified with statements like “it’s their only way out of poverty”. So in a way globalisation is presented as a win-win situation: cheap clothes for the “rich”, job opportunities for the “poor”. How do you see that argumentation?
Your exactly right, this is at the heart of the story we’ve been told our entire lives. There are two glaring problems with this story. First, there is increasing evidence to prove what has long been speculated that this one way trip out of poverty is untrue. There is more and more data to prove that in situations of systemic exploitation it actually further entrenches extreme poverty and inequality. Second, one are these two options (starvation/exploitative labour) the best we can come up with? This illusion of a zero sum ratio is primitive at best, we need to open a new conversation and develop other options that involve empowering work and the creation of economic development.
Another problematic point mentioned in the movie is the donation of clothes to “Third World countries”, an altruistic act in sense. But how can these donations cause damage in the receiving countries?
Less than 10% of the clothes we donate in America (similar numbers in other developed nations) are sold in local thrift or charity shops. The rest are shipped to developing countries where they are sold into the local clothing market, often displacing traditions of local tailoring and garment production. We witness this in the film first hand in Haiti and there are countless other examples around the world.
„That journey turned into a life changing two year process“
The movie shows a series of dramatic and tragic personal stories. How easy or how tough is it to keep a certain distance as a producer? What was your initial intention to start the production of the movie “The True Cost”?
I just started with a lot of questions. I’d grown up buying clothes without ever thinking about where they came from or who they impacted along the way. After the 2013 clothing factory collapse at Rana Plaza that took the lives of more than 1,000 people (mostly women some children) I wanted to better understand what it was I was buying into when I bought my clothes. That journey turned into a life changing two year process that took our team to 13 countries and as you say countless tragic personal stories. As the project grew and took shape my goal remained the same, to answer the questions I began with and offer the resulting film to a world of people who buy clothes just like me.
Towards the end of the movie you’re naming capitalism as the root of the problem, the cause for the constant need for more and cheaper products. Especially big and enormously powerful companies like Monsanto a regularly escaping democratic control. How likely do you see a shift towards truly fair and global trade within the existing capitalist system?
We need to internalize some of the very real costs that are being left out. In our current system the only thing that is being counted is profit. The idea of the true cost is really just stepping back to evaluate and count the costs that we’ve been leaving out of the equation. Those costs include human life, pollution, species degradation, resource scarcity etc. I would also, like countless others before me, like to see a growing amount of transparency from within the industry that allows outside groups to advocate for those who are routinely falling through the cracks of our “free market” driven system.
„…that there are hearts and hands behind the things we wear“
As a last questions I’d like to know which expectations you have from people after having watched your movie. How can people in their daily life make a contributions towards a more just world?
In so many ways the experience of living in the modern world is a constant invitation to look away. We are increasingly distanced from the people who make our products in all areas as well as the impact these things have on our world. I hope that the film is an act of looking and that it leaves people with a lot to wrestle with as they walk away. More than anything I want people to understand that there are hearts and hands behind the things we wear. When we buy products we cast a vote and we buy into supporting a system. My experience has lead me to the firm belief that we can do much, much better.
Interview: Johannes Greß