The True Cost

On the clothes we wear,

the people who make these clothes,

and the impact it is having on our world.

It is a story about greed and fear,

power and poverty.

It is complex, because it extends throughout the world.

But it is also simple,

revealing how connected we are to the many hearts and hands

behind our clothes.

I went into this story without having any experience in fashion,

starting with only a few simple questions.

What I've discovered,

It has forever changed how I think about the clothes I wear,

and my hope is that you do the same thing happen.

Perhaps you can begin by saying your name

and he is talking about how it was that started this.

My name is Lucy Siegle.

I am a journalist and presenter based in the UK,

and I've been obsessed, consumed

the environmental and social impacts of the fashion industry

for about a decade.

I like everything from clothing.

I love poetry, I love the fabric,

I love the colors, textures,

I love how you feel.

It is the skin that we choose.

Well, I had the classic huge closet,

clothes everywhere,

bags continually coming into my house,

every day, every other day with another item

and I never had anything to wear.

I could never put together a coherent whole.

We communicate who we are

to some extent through clothing.

This is, again, throughout history.

We trends in court,

and Marie Antoinette with these huge hats.

It has always been our personal communication in many ways.

That's what interests me,

which it is essentially part of what we want to communicate

about ourselves.

We used to have a system, a system of fashion

where people went to the parades,

so did spring, summer, autumn, winter,

and it worked like clockwork for many years.

Well, forget it, throw it out the window.

That has absolutely nothing to do with today's fashion industry.

It has been reinvented.

The change moves ruthlessly

to a way of producing

actually only deals

the interests of big business.

Young, she did not give much importance

anything other than the price of buying clothes,

usually choosing in the style or a good deal.

Looking back, I knew for a long time

most of our clothes are made here in the United States.

As recently as the '60s, still we did 95% of our clothes.

Today, we only about 3%

and the other 97% is outsourced

in developing countries worldwide.

I have been in business for over nine years.

In terms of scale, we have about 25 000 people

only what is manufacturing garments.

We produce one of every six shirts sold in the US. UU.

If you go to a store,

and compare the price of an item in the last 20 years,

you will discover that there are actually deflation product

that is, the price has dropped over time.

Now, our costs have decreased? Absolutely.

Our costs have gone up.

The more we have outsourced production,

have become cheaper prices of clothes we buy,

I give way to an entirely new model, known as Fast Fashion,

the overnight, transforming how the clothes are bought and sold.

The latest H & M store on 5th Avenue in Manhattan

It is the largest in the history of the company,

and one of the many new stores planned in the country.

This is part of a revolution in trade,

Fast Fashion.

Instead of two seasons per year,

practically we have 52 seasons a year.

So we have something new every week.

And fast fashion has created this,

primarily to sell more products.

We love TopShop!

You can get this metallic fringed skirt for $ 39 at Joe Fresh

a new store in the city.

With a little more attractive to cost-conscious buyers prices.

American consumers fully captured fashion H & M,

and we already know that Americans

They are very price oriented.

If you combine these two together, with fashion and price,

then you have the recipe.

A Japanese clothing retailer is leaving

fast and furious mark here in the US. UU.

The price has dropped.

The way to do that product has changed completely.

And at some point one must ask:

"Where does it end?"

The global market is a place

we export the work to be performed

in any conditions we want,

products and then come back to me,

so cheap you can throw without thinking about it.

JOHN HILARY, DIRECTOR EJECUTIVO

DE WAR ON WAN Globalized production basically means

that all manufacturing of goods

It has been outsourced to low-cost economies,

particularly where wages are very low and remain low.

And what that means is that those at the top of the value chain,

They can choose where products are made,

and may change if, for example, a factory says:

"We can not do it so cheap."

The brand will say, "Well, no longer will go to you.

Let's move to another site that is cheaper. "

Dacca, Bangladesh

In the West they say: "everyday low prices".

So, every day, causing me difficulties

and he caused them to my employees, and it works.

Competing stores are competing there.

When stores come to us for ordering and negotiate,

They tell us:
"Look, that particular store

this shirt is selling for $ 5,

so I have to sell it at $ 4.

You'll have to reduce your price. "

So we reduce it.

Then comes another store saying:

"Hey, they are selling it at $ 4.

The target price is $ 3, if you can do it for $ 3,

You get the business, otherwise you do not get it ".

As desperately we want the business,

and we have no other options, okay.

We are always trying to survive, actually.

In the end, something ends up giving.

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