"The True Cost" Review

Who Really Pays the Price for Our Clothing?

A young mother walks into the city for work. She sits down at her work station, threads her machine, and starts sewing away to reach her daily quota. The heat and the chemicals fumigate the factory but yet she has to continue.  A fire breaks out and the overworked woman was unable to escape getting trapped by the smoke and flames with the rest of the factory workers. She never sees her family again.

Completely naked sitting on the cold cement floor is the only way to be able to watch this fashion documentary without feeling remorse.  Every now and then we hear of the poor working conditions many garment workers work in but it wasn’t until the film “The True Cost” came around that really showed me how society negatively effects workers in the third world countries who make the cheap clothing that we take for granted every day.

Grasping the attention of just about everyone, the director Andrew Morgan exposes the life and conditions of the women and sometimes even children go through every day. The constant fear that they will be beaten for less than adequate work, killed by the collapse of a factory with poor infrastructure, or suffer a slow and painful death by an illness caused by exposure to dangerous fumes and chemicals certainly does not get overlooked in this film. 

After watching this film, it is hard to go out to Forever 21, Gap, or even Nike and not reconsider what each and every one of us is buying. With every cheap shirt, shoe, skirt, dress, etc. we don’t only buy the item but the pain and suffering of each and every sweatshop worker that is struggling to make a dime a day.

It is a sad but true story and it needs to be shared. It is time we all start to look at where our clothes are being made instead of having these third world countries paying the price for our fast fashion. We need to start buying garments that we know were made in ethical conditions. Sure it might be a little more expensive then the trash we find at fast fashion stores like Forever 21 and H&M but at least we won’t be buying a life.

I hope everyone of you takes the time to watch this film which is on Netflix by the way. It is important to know what we are wearing and if people really knew what was happening I doubt we would have this problem. We are causing the problem and it is our job to fix it.