Collective Eye Films's Fast Fashion: The Real Price of Low-Cost Fashion is a haunting investigation of the alarmingly dangerous realities of the fast fashion industry. As the title suggests, directors Gilles Bovon and Èdouard Perrin seek to provide the viewer with both the origin story of the fast fashion industry and the quickly compounding factors as we continue to purchase it. A customer may not stop to consider how a garment is inexpensive, but instead, come to expect garments to be comparably priced.
The documentary also demonstrates how purchasing fast fashion, regardless of intent, increases demand for what one reporter calls "dodgy practices." The filmmakers explore these practices by interlacing interviews, news coverage, and undercover reporter footage to explain how fast fashion has become so pervasive in our society. This investigative reporting also shows how these products can be produced as quickly as possible from design to construction, and finally to your doorstep. Company doctors, brand founders, former employees, social media influencers, and workshop owners all contribute their experiences to this comprehensive film.
Fast Fashion strips away the excitement of social media buzz and owning cheap fashionable clothing at the click of a button for what it is: destructive. Destructive to the employees who work in unsafe conditions often for limited pay, the environment that is polluted with the byproducts of textile mills, and to the impact of garments on the environments yet again when they are tossed aside in favor of a newer trend. Fast Fashion: The Real Price of Low-Cost Fashion condenses the history, dangers, and implications of fast fashion into a fast-paced 52-minute tell-all. Highly recommended. Editor's Choice. Aud: J, H, C, P.
Included in our list of Best Documentaries 2021.
