My Fancy High Heels

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Fashion

If you want an immediate, visceral hit, try film. Watching what people, animals and planet are really going through to make your clothes will change the way you think and feel about the fashion industry. My Fancy High Heels is a poignant take on the brutal Chinese leather industry (Source: Jacobs 2017, np link).

[Translated] Behind the more beautiful things are more ugly truth (Source: 陳玳儒 2014, np link).

’Brand New Shoes’ are every woman’s best friend. My Fancy High Heels follows the process of making a pair of beautiful shoes that will go across from luxury streets of Manhattan New York City to the Gwangdong district in Southern China, Northern China and the town at the Chinese and Russian borders (Source: Kwon Eun-sun 2011, np link)

Taiwanese film-maker Ho Chao-ti’s documentary … portrays in detail the production line of a branded pair of high heel shoes, and shows us how the making of such a commercial product reflects the impact of globalization, and how countries and places become connected as a result of their social and economic interests and demands (Source: Chu 2010, p131).

Five years ago she started filming stories about clothes and shoes. As fate would have it, she visited a production line for brand-name high-heeled shoes. She discovered that making a pair of shoes is really complicated, and involves materials from many different places. At the time she thought, if she traced further and further upstream from this production line, what would she see? And where would her search for these people lead her? On the other hand, if she explored the downstream end of this production line, whose feet would ultimately wear these beautiful shoes? From upstream to downstream, how different would be the dreams that each of these people have? So it was that she started to search for the main characters of this story, and also to ask them what their dreams were. This was a wholly unforgettable experience. From extreme poverty to extreme affluence, she saw disparities in this world that truly make a person sigh (Source: Anon nde, np link).

[M]aking a pair of shoes can be really complicated. It involves obtaining and using materials from many different places. At the time I thought, if I traced further and further upstream from this production line, what would I see? And where would my search for these people lead me (Source: Ho in Chu 2010, p.130-131)?

Ho shows these through her effective use of graphical images of the contributive parts of the production process. Visits to where these take place introduce us to people of different social strata whose lives are associated with high heel shoes (Source: Chu 2010, p.131).

Five years ago I started filming stories about clothes and shoes. As fate would have it, I visited a production line for brand-name high-heeled shoes. I discovered that making a pair of shoes is really complicated, and involves materials from many different places. At the time I thought, if I traced further and further upstream from this production line, what would I see? And where would my search for these people lead me? On the other hand, if I explored the downstream end of this production line, whose feet would ultimately wear these beautiful shoes? From upstream to downstream, how different would be the dreams that each of these people have? So it was that I started to search for the main characters of this story, and also to ask them what their dreams were. This was a wholly unforgettable experience. From extreme poverty to extreme affluence, I saw disparities in this world that truly make a person sigh (Source: 我愛高跟鞋 2010b, np link).

While such transnational documentaries draw attention to social and class inequalities, such as focusing on how poor working conditions in the factories are causing workers higher exposure to health and technological risks, MFHH takes one step further from its concern for human subjects to greater socio-environmental justice towards the non-human world. While the film basically addresses problems of economic globalization, our attention is drawn also to its eco-critical portrayal of the slaughter of baby calves and, with it, the exploitative practice of global fashion production in the contemporary world (Source: Chu 2010, p.131).

In MFHH, being the characters in the lowest strata in society, butchers in the slaughter house are not given interview opportunities. The absence of voice becomes a kind of disempowerment to certain groups of people, reasserting their status as the marginalized and voiceless poor (Source: Chu 2010, p.139).

I’ve read many posts about this movie, and I’m really looking forward to see it myself. Where can I buy or watch this documentary (Source: Oleguer 2011, np link)?

[T]ransnationality in these documentaries, on one hand, facilitates the expression of eco-critical and environmentalist messages concerning nature and the environment, as well as the relationships between human and all other beings on the planet; and on the other, reveals the challenges and contradictions film-makers and artists faced in the productions in attempts to reflect their ecological and environmental concerns, challenges and contradictions that are brought about by the unstoppable forces of excessive global consumerism (Source: Chu 2010, p127-128).

Three Chinese speaking films were shown Friday at the 10th International Association of Women in Radio and Television (IAWRT) film festival here for celebrating the International Women’s Day … Also presented was the documentary ‘My fancy high heels’ from Taiwan director Ho Chao-Ti which rigorously traced the journey of a pair of branded high-heeled shoes, and looked at the dreams of the people involved (Source: Xinhua 2014, np link).

We all know about the strides the Chinese are making in commerce and technology. But who knew that the output of Chinese women filmmakers was so great that they warranted their own film festival (Source: Janusonis 2014, np link)?

Thanks to Prof. Lingzhen Wang of Brown University, nine films and their directors – from mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong – will be in Providence to present their films at the Cable Car Cinema Saturday and Sunday, followed by a symposium on Wednesday, March 21 (Source: Janusonis 2014, np link).

The event has the unwieldy title Chinese Women’s Documentaries in the Market Era, but don’t let that scare you off. The films range from the serious – ‘Bing Ai’ looks at the emotional toll taken on the more than 1 million people who had to be relocated because of the construction of the Three Gorges Dam along the Yangtze River – to the fanciful – ‘My Fancy High Heels’ traces every step that goes into the making of expensive high heel shoes, from the farmer who tends the cattle whose hides are used as the leather to the debutante who buys them in New York – to an exploration in “Beijing Taxi” of how the vast changes in Chinese everyday life affect three people, taxi drivers in Beijing (Source: Janusonis 2014, np link).