The
True Cost unravels a grim, gritty world and shows
that not all
fashion documentaries should be pretty
Fashion
has always enjoyed a love affair with film – from Dior & I to
Valentino: The Last Emperor and Mademoiselle C – but how does the
industry react when the story veers away from wide-eyed escapism and
the tale is far from fabulous?
Lucy Siegle /
Thursday 4 June 2015 06.00 BST /
http://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2015/jun/04/true-cost-film-grim-gritty-world-fashion-documentaries-rana-plaza
A weird thing
happened to me at the London premiere of Andrew Morgan’s
documentary The True Cost, last week. As co-executive producer with
campaigner Livia Firth, I introduced the film to a very starry
audience (including Tom Ford wearing aviators) and nestled into my
seat.
But when my big face
loomed into shot on the giant screen, I got the shock of my life.
Despite having watched the film many, many times, I had somehow
forgotten that I was actually in it.
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Tom Ford with actor
Colin Firth at the London premiere of The True Cost. Photograph:
David M. Benett/Getty Images
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Was I overawed by
the occasion? Perhaps. But, more than that, I think I was suddenly
aware that this was a film about fashion, and that didn’t compute.
Ordinarily, I would never expect to be in a fashion film unless I’d
accidentally strolled into the back of a shot.
You see, fashion
films are not my natural arena. I might fleetingly enjoy watching one
for a hit of fantasy, but I am very aware that – although they are
almost always billed as documentaries – they do not ordinarily go
there, as far as the reality of the industry is concerned.
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The chair of the
British Fashion Council, Natalie Massenet, with the film’s
co-executive producer Livia Firth. Photograph: David M. Benett/Getty
Images
|
Instead, from Dior
and I to Valentino: The Last Emperor and Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has
to Travel, they major in wide-eyed escapism, typically exploring the
obsessional aesthete, and full of tropes such as voyeuristic,
indecently long shots. This is the lens through which we’ve become
accustomed to following tales of haute couture and general
fabulousness.
The True Cost, on
the other hand, is a fashion documentary that goes there and then
some – it unravels the grim, gritty, global supply chain of fast
fashion: a system that has injected the type of speed, disposability
and price deflation that has directly led to the worst casualties in
the industrial age. On our watch.
To be fair, the bulk
of the reviews were extraordinarily appreciative of Morgan’s
brilliant film. Harvey Weinstein announced at the first LA screening:
“This movie’s going to shock the fashion world” – and it
will. Reviewing The True cost, the New York Times said: “Under the
gentle, humane investigations of its director, what emerges most
strongly is a portrait of exploitation that ought to make us more
nauseated than elated over those $20 jeans.”
But some of the
reactions have suggested to me that – although it’s often
proclaimed that fashion and film are trapped in a love affair
(another trope) – unless the films are hagiographical, the two
industries do not seem such easy bedfellows.
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Director Andrew
Morgan and model and actress Amber Valletta attend the film’s Los
Angeles premiere. Photograph: Vincent Sandoval/Getty Images
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Some I have spoken
to in the fashion industry found the impact of watching The True Cost
overwhelming, and they reported experiencing a type of moral
whiplash. Then there was that defensive
whaddaya-want-me-to-do-about-it? reaction, coming from the fact that
solving the problem has no straightforward answers, and Morgan
purposefully does not present any. “I’m probably most proud that
we avoided easy answers and instead chose to trust people to both
feel and think deeply about the issues raised,” he says.
Morgan is actually
much more charitable than me about the genre he’s ended up involved
with. “I’m actually fascinated by those [fashion] films that
follow one person,” he tells me from his home in LA. “The best
that have been made recently tap into that fascination and give us a
glimpse behind the curtain.”
But the director is
also a fashion outsider. A father of four, Morgan was moved to
investigate fashion’s dark heart when he glimpsed a newspaper
photograph of two young boys – the same age as his sons –
searching futilely for their mother after the Rana Plaza catastrophe,
in April 2013. He was astonished to find out that his non-remarkable
clothes could be a product of this fashion system.
Morgan says making
The True Cost has changed his life – not least because of the
terrifying moments when he and his producer, Michael Ross, were held
at gun point and cornered by riot police in some of the 13 countries
they travelled through to get the story. It has also made a
difference to the pair because they have joined the dots between
fashion, consumerism, capitalism and structural poverty and
oppression, and will never shop in the same way again.
So, how should you
handle a film such as The True Cost? Here, I actually think
traditional fashion films have taught us something. We should watch
as we’d watch those same reverent biographies: let the story absorb
you, transport you and take you under. Engaging with the ugly side of
fashion will lead to changing it.
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