Blood, Sweat & T-shirts
Video Worksheet
Define the programme The videos are trailers for a British TV programme. Six young fashion victims
who are addicted to shopping are sent to India to find/see out how their high(origin, contents...)
street clothes are made.
Amrita : She's a 21-year-old British-Asian whose family comes Delhi. She's a
What you have
understood about the fashion photography student. She lives in West London.
person
Richard : He's 24. He's a working class boy who grew up on a council estate
(= HLM) in Peterborough. He now owns an advertising company and believes
anyone can work their way up and get a better life. He thinks that even people
who live in extreme poverty in India have an opportunity to get a good life if they
work.
Mark : He's a 24-year-old clothes shop manager from Essex. He lives with his
mummy because he spends so much money on clothes he can't afford his own
place.
Tara : She's 21-year-old. Her mother is a designer for Topshop. She's addicted
to shopping. She wants to become a fashion designer and go into full-time
business with her mum.
Stacey : She's a 20-year-old shop assistant from Luton.
Georgina : She's a 20 year-old telesales executive from Berton-on-Trent.
His/her relation to
clothes and fashion
Amrita : She likes to look good. She thinks cheap fashion is great. She hasn't
never thought about and doesn't care who makes her clothes, whether her
clothes were made by a 3-year-old or a 50-year-old.
Richard : He thinks making clothes is easy. He wants to go to India to see with
his own eyes if sweatshops and child labour really exist. He thinks making
clothes is so easy that you could train a monkey to do it.
Mark : Likes to be good-looking. He buys clothes, no matter what they cost but
he's got nothing else to spend his money on.
Tara : She likes to look good. She likes clothes.
Stacey : She loves, loves, loves, loves, loves fashion. She loves buying the
world.
Georgina : She loves fashion and buying a lot of clothes. She likes cheap
fashion because you can buy clothes so cheap that you can wear and
chuck/throw them away. She adores shopping, but her shopping habits have
taken their toll on her bank balance : she's in debt.
What others say of
them
Amrita : Her dad says her experience of India is that of a tourist. She hasn't
seen the poor side of India.
Richard : /
Mark : His mum says he doesn't know the value of money and labour.
Tara : /
Stacey : Her mum says Stacey can shop from 9 am to 9 pm non-stop. She can
shop till she drops.
Georgina : /
What they had to do First they had to work in a big factory (described as a state-of-the-art (dernier
in front of the camera cri) factory : the « Rolls Royce of Indian factories ». There they had to sew
clothes on a sewing machine. They had to produce two garments a minute,
which they didn't manage.
Secondly, they had to work in a backstreet factory/sweatshop where working
conditions were even tougher : it's very dark, crowded, dirty and noisy, the floor
was just earth, without a proper toilet or a shower. They also had to live there
and sleep on the floor of the factory.
They also worked as cotton pickers in a cotton field and in a cotton mill to
process raw cotton, which was hard, physical world. They worked all day
carrying heavy weights for 7p an hour or just over €1 a day, which is next to
nothing/a pittance.
Then they traveled to Mumbai to see if they can find better ways of making
clothes.
Reaction to their
conditions
Amrita : The voiceover says it already too much for her in the first factory. She
cries and says it's absolutely pathetic, ridiculous, uncivilized and backwards
(arriéré).
Richard : Making clothes wasn't as easy as he thought. He found life as an
unskilled worker difficult.
Mark : It was a real shock. He did so well sewing clothes that he ended up on a
line that produced clothes for leading highstreet brands where it was even more
stressful. On the cotton mills, he found life much tougher that he ever expected.
He realised how little the people get paid.
Tara : She's shocked. She thinks their living and working conditions are
unfair. She cries because she can't take it. She says her mum is a seamstress
and doesn't make better clothes than the Indian taylors who bosh out clothes
for 12 rupees per item. She's witnessed a lot of unfair treatment.
Stacey : She found working in India tough. She asks if all this is legal, and
surprisingly it is. She says it's completely unacceptable and disgusting that
things like these are legal.
Georgina : She's shocked about the living and working conditions.
Has this experience
changed them?
Amrita : She has found a new respect for her clothes and the people who make
them.
Richard : He's realised that he was wrong and that unskilled workers in India
can't get an education because they work all the time for nothing.
Mark : He's learnt the truth about his clothes, which has changed his passion for
fashion. He now has a better knowledge of the value of labour.
Tara : Tara found a fairtrade factory (commerce équitable), which she thinks
can help stop the unfairness and inequalities in this world and enable people to
be economically independent. She's now more interested in the way clothes are
made.
Stacey : She wants to change things.
Georgina : She's realised she doesn't need all the clothes she has. She's
changed her shopping habits. When she buys something she wants to know that
the workers who have made it are treated in a fair way.
Possible solutions :
1. We should only buy products made in France or Europe, as it would help us
economically and would stop labour. Yet, it wouldn't help the economies of
developing nations as it would slow down trade. We need to think of solutions that
resolve the problems but also ecourage economic growth.
2. Fairtrade appears as a good solution, because it doesn't stop economic exchanges
and trade and allows poorer nations to develop, making sure that workers and
children there are not exploited.
3. The situation is so bad that it cannot go on and there will be a revolution in those
countries because the mass is fed up. We've got a good example with last year's
Arab Spring. The could well be an Asian spring soon.
4. Education could help break the cycle of poverty : if children don't go to school they
will never learn the skills that are necessary to get better jobs than factory work that
is paid a pittance. It would also allow them to choose their job rather than being
forced to work in sweatshops. Education should be made compulsory everywhere.
The United Nations should launch an ambitious programme to provide basic
education everywhere.