Film Review: Traceable

A Thought-Provoking Look at a Global Fashion Industry Spiralling out of Control

On April 24, 2013, the Rana Plaza in Savar, Bangladesh, suddenly collapsed. After rescue workers sifted through the devastation, 1,129 were confirmed dead and thousands more injured. Those numbers alone make the collapse a tragedy. The tragedy is all the more devastating when you consider another horrific figure: 10.56 — that’s the number of dollars and cents that each of the workers who lost their lives in this eight-storey garment factory could hope to take home each week, after toiling for five days, from 8 a.m. until well after dark.

Unfortunately, it often takes this kind of calamity to shine new light on an inconvenient (and oft-ignored) truth: the scarves, skirts and jeans that we dole out hundreds of dollars for were often sewn together by someone half a world away who made mere pennies for their craft.

But the point of director Jennifer K. Sharpe’s documentary Traceable isn’t just to spotlight the plight of exploited workers but to paint a larger portrait of a global fashion industry that is itself on the verge of collapse. It’s not news to anyone that sweatshops exist. Enough big brands have been in the headlines for taking advantage of their workers. But as Traceable shows, it’s not as cut-and-dry as some moustache-twirling CEO shoring up his bottom line with cheap foreign labour.