Always dreamed of a luxury rare blend of the impossible elegance. Like this handbag for example beautiful isnt it. But luxury is also what 300000000. 00 International Market wild Famous Brands who shops populate the most beautiful avenues of major capital cities. But behind the glamorous exterior all that glitters is not gold. The back rooms of these lecturing boutiques are hidden away on the other side of the outcomes in the heart of tuscany. Hundreds of supply is to. I mean leather for world Famous Brands was subcontracting the lower employees are overworked or in this case i was. Doing our film and. We met some questionable bosses. Welcome to a rather chilling industry. We began our investigation on our home tough. After all being in fronts we have paris. Paris we have fashion week. But of course you know all about fashion. Star studded hack talk shows. And some one of the stockings. With a no no no theme. Guccis dental chic with little. Happy Smiling Faces at louis veto. But it wasnt really the clothes that stood out to us have you noticed what each of the models is carrying. Handbags of oh shapes and sizes and at all prices starting at 1350. 00. And. Accessories a move popular than ever you only need to look at the figures. Take some of the major french brands for example we calculated the Sales Revenue from items such as handbags wallets and shoes. Leather goods here are the results. For gucci 74 percent. Brands total revenue. Relief song of on 72 percent. 60 percent for half the mess. You get the picture in the load of luxury goods leather means record breaking profits. But when it does this luxury is leva come from according to our information most of this role material is termed in italy we call up each tannery one by one it takes there are 700. 00 in total we almost the same question each time and time i was wondering which brands to share tannery work for. Ok i dont. Yet. See anything. But some of the companies do play bull and 700 phone calls later of luxury supplies is starting to take shape. The phone calls have brought one surprising detail to our attention all of these tanneries and subcontractors are located in one small area of task just 36 square kilometers. Welcome to some to grow to so. Noticeably less glamorous world them the luxury catwalks of pounds. Worth is a not easily approachable. Clearly a rather secretive place. These are the left sri net the tanneries they generate over a 1000000000. 00 in revenue each year and employ over 7000. 00 people a small very profitable part of italy. We have been given permission to visit one of these temperatures its one of the largest in the region these embry tannery. Movie is the owners right hand man he will be. He starts his off with the crown jewel the show room. Finished products sent from the lead the district and animal skins printed pressed and sold by the square meter these will henceforth be used in major Brands Manufacturing workshops to make come backs belts and shoes. I can say that we work we have worked at some point with almost all of the Big International fashion houses. And so. Polo Ralph Lauren Tommy Hilfiger the Louis Vuitton group chloe. Its a bit of a model. The need is as proud as a peacock. Christie just climbs happy employees a tannery that spic and span and state of the art equipment. Frankly we were won over by our day adopted. Except that here they only perform the final stages of the tanning process the rather more pleasant ones upstream theres a whole chain of subcontractors carrying out dozens of towns no thanks tasks allow us to explain. At the start of its life a handbag looks like this next the cow skin must be removed with mountains of course salt poured on top of it to preserve it. Then the cowhides are sent to the tanneries to begin a long multistage process. During one of these stages they are put into a kind of cement mixer along with Hydrogen Sulfide to remove all the fur this is what produces the rotten egg smell that lingers throughout the area they are then transferred to these big drums and soaked with chromium salts to stop the decomposition process they are left out to dry. And then soaked again to soften then read dried then soaked again. The details of the other 30 stages but they are rather unpleasant and quite painful now that youve understood the huge number of stages involved and the number of subcontractors needed lets go back to sampling. Remember that the tannery claims to work for the l. V. And h. Group and its luxury brand kens m. L v m h the number one luxury goods conglomerate in the world has developed a fairly strict code of conduct. No illegal under. No excessive overtime judy to provide workers with a safe environment to reduce the risk of accidents in the workplace. All of the luxury giants have codes of conduct just like this one that supposedly applied to their suppliers and any subcontractors hired by their supplies it seems like everything is under control in the world of Luxury Fashion every link in the chain is squeaky clean. And so we continue on our journey into this in chanting world. Good news one of his our precept contractors tommo plaque has agreed to let his visit. Meet the boss his name is of fun so get a. General plaque specializes in drawing animal skins large tanneries working for Luxury Brands such as xampp center leather here. Each animal hides weighs between 15 and 30 kilos workers carry hundreds of them every day most of the employees here are senegalese. Advance of gether is not the only one hiring senegalese employees you only have to come to the leather district in the early hours of the morning to see the. Hundreds of unskilled workers whose jobs in the luxury goods sector are far from secure. This is what we are about to discover through the documents in this briefcase. Confidential data or about the working conditions inside the tanneries 1st up temporary workers here are hundreds of short Term Contracts signed off by various companies. And thats not all an internal documents from the Occupational Health Care Department lists accidents at work by nationality. According to our calculations Foreign Workers are affected twice as much as italian workers. At the department of Occupational Health dr is in charge of the tannery sector shes been fighting for Employee Health and safety for the past 15 years according to her there is a direct link between short term contract. An accident so. This could have i thought you are my everything i know workers are hired for a week day and hour at a time. Space. And show now days for an tannery workers think these are temporary not to mention carious contracts fast and black working experience. Theyre much more likely to be victims of work related accidents. For too nice to go so how is the issue of health and safety addressed at telmo plant. All day workers are handling animal skins soaked in chemicals. Of funds and get a perfect bus claims that he takes it upon himself to provide protective equipment. To his eyes and for the workers when you. Its not that we dont trust him but we feel we need to hear another perspective so under the pretext of exploring the factory we take the opportunity to ask a few questions filming without a hidden camera how long have you worked here. Ive been here a month i meant yeah ok and who gave you your protective equipment. I bought it myself it was you bullshit its not given to you no i see how many hours you work a day. I work 13 hours a day 13 hours a day dont disturb him while hes working the bosss son has come to intervene. Let him get back to work. In a factory like this there is always a risk of accidents of pairing fortunately each machine has its own safety feature is the demands that. We have there been any accidents or the vin a few small incidents but thats all mostly due to negligence or being a bit tired in the morning but nothing serious one already got. So youve never had any and hit asians no no im really very careful about safety for we were always in ways. Were finding it harder and harder to believe of fun together. After several days in santa croce we gained the trust of an xterm open. This man went to tell me a plaque in 2000 vote and claims that the boss of fun together would sometimes disable the safety mechanisms on the machines to increase productivity he lost 3 knuckles he agrees to talk to us as a witness provided he can remain anonymous to prove that day it was the 1st animal skin id ever worked on and i took it and put it inside the machine i press down on the pedals and the blade blocked a lot. Of grooves so i turned it around put the skin back inside the machine. Pressed down on the pedals and it took my hand with it. Just like that. It got hold of my gloves and took off 3 of my knuckles. It was really tough she. Cried all night long. The doctor asked me what had happened. And the boss wanted to lie about it. He lied said it was Something Else do you. Buy a lot. And i said no it was the machine you go to see what excuse did he gave. He said that a plank had fallen on my fingers and that had cut my hand. So. We met jack on foodie just 2 months after they had left. This is what they claim to have received a silly thing present a violent beating for having dead to demand payment. According to them this was the work of alfonso geta along with one of his sons. Monarchical them and wed agreed to meet here to collect our payment. But when we arrived found so and one of his sons were here along with some others. There were 6 of them in total to be safe as on. Just on usually had iron bars naives and everything. Tacked me and my friend to. Wonder when will they hit me over the head with an iron bar plus one of the federal. 40 in check reported the incident the very next day but alfonso get on and his son have still not been cool for investigation. The 2 young men claimed they were undeclared workers im a force to work and the grueling conditions in. A we were treated like animals we couldnt do anything we werent even allowed to go to the toilet if we want. They told us to do it behind the machine we were working people and we worked from 5 in the morning until midday and then started again from 1 pm until 7 pm 13 hours a day. 5 to be sure into a ghetto doesnt pay the senegalese workers who are employed under him. Sometimes he doesnt pay them for 4 months at a time. Since our meeting with check in 40 of fence so ghana is said to have physically abused another one of his employees as far as we know he is still not being prosecuted. A few weeks later we go back to tamil plant to see the books however this time we are not so well received. So our final funds are. Alfonzo its very. How are you. How do you pay i told you not to film me. But i thought we agreed no we didnt agree anything i mean. One of his sons quickly intervenes. And then another comes along despite the frosty reception. But we attempt to ask about 40 and check. On a little frustrated with is it all a little luck is there no money for somebody if you got somebody this is going to be fun because if you do a lot it is real only if it will. Eventually catch up to see you do it. Produce all the. Bosses all she was working conditions in the elegant world of Luxury Fashion we could not. This. Fortunately italy has its labor inspectorate surely they must be on the case. The problem is that according to our information they dont tend to visit the tanneries area of ever since ricardo spello was appointed at the end of 2014 there has been a dramatic decline in the number of inspections in the lead the district since we only have one pressing issue to address here on out how that. They had iron bars knives and everything. They attacked me and my friend. Because you know look i dont know anything about this case i repeat as far as were concerned we dont know anything about it and you know institutionally in case of problems like these we have a Duty Inspector stuck was his own son was of course it does that mean that after today you arent going to do anything about it unless one of these young men who are attacked travel 30 miles to come and tell you about it in person if theyre still. In ma but im convinced that the actions taken by this office i mean even though theres always room for improvement. They are more than sufficient wish him to stop go fishing there are 3 fourths of precaution features. If everythings just fine around here apologies for the inconvenience. And what about the contract in policy are there no sanctions for them is breed the model tannery claiming to work for l v m h aware of the violent acts allegedly committed by some contractor because remember zambian tamil plug work hand in hand we go back to meet carlo groovey me to question him about the behavior of this subcontractor. Do you still work with him up chuck no no. Well were in the process of changing some things with our subcontractors. Come to visit because he told me that youre responsible for your sub contract is this is it that you hold them accountable we move for a while yes were aware of the situation we do everything we can of course. It could be perceived as your but also there are some things how can i say this. Shouldnt you have to have this right to gauge the well yes of course we have to check that everythings going well. But its difficult to know if the employees have been paid or not to shoot it. And in any case this they can make complaints to the police. To the factory inspectors try to get to the authorities area which is. Up to those at the end of the supply chain think about this situation we asked for an interview with the l. V. M. H. Group but they refused or we received through an email stating the following. With regards to cancer we barely see any sign in our books of the company receiving leather from the zambry tamary. Yet when we are sampling they maintain that this is one of their most important partnerships. Kenzo most definitely uses our leather and their products. In recent years we have made 567 any will shipments directly to kenzo. We have a longstanding working relationship. And its still ongoing yes. For at least the past 3 years people have been aware of the sorts of problems taking place in italian tanneries short Term Contracts accidents of work ever since one man brought these issues to life. He lives in the tuscan countryside an hours drive away from santa croce his name is francesco. He is the president of an italian ngo fighting for fair Labor Conditions for some of the poorest workers and has written a report called a tough story of. This report was authorized and funded by the European Commission. Its publication will no doubt provoke the wrath of many let the manufacturers. They started to say that what we wrote was untrue that there were i dont know how many errors in the end they discredited our port and the green. Part. Of what they said it was obviously written by incompetent people who dont know anything about the sector. Theyre talking rubbish. A group of manufacturers owns the European Commission to call in the authors of the report in spring 20162 meetings were organized in brussels. With one man at the helm Gustavo Gonzalez representing tons the european lead the lobby. Most of all there was the guy from photons who spoke on behalf of the Tanners Association. For he said this report must be taken out of circulation for good this to get us into what was the European Commissions role the strange thing was that the European Commission didnt say ok lets see whose facts are really correct. Now maybe they just took the Tanners Association side of. A report but by brussels that they themselves later rejected the European Commission one over by letter lobbyist it seems like this story is well worth a trip to belgium despite numerous email exchanges clinton says secretary general gonzales refused to meet with us so we decided to pay him a surprise visit. Hello mr gonzales yes this is it i wanted to ask you some questions because were just shooting in santa croce just come into this must be careful search gently but no violence please sir. No violence do you also use christian will get on it by you know but im not being violent but you knocked over my camera man thats why im saying that you almost pushed me over. The budget to no thats not true but weve just come back from filming in santa croce that indian family and weve witnessed large numbers of people working overtime undeclared workers accidents that havent been reported for you i know youre aware of this report tough story of mother. Didnt say it was published in 2016 and it highlights some of the unforeseen actresses in certain town resound santa croce yet think it states that twice as many immigrants have been victims of accidents at work than italian workers if you can i think this is acceptable. Because it 1st of all the top story of leather report was discredited because it was spreading false Information Big news. I know it was based on occupational medicine statistics over a 5 year period one of the or occupational medicine statistics over 5 years i can assure you thats not the case see the 2nd is yes it is the case mr gonzales excuse me but according to these figures you seem to be basing your argument on something thats been discredited it was made up of fake news. This is not always but according to our information it has not been discredited as you say it was actually you who tried to cover up this report could excuse me yes ms you tried to cover it up no no all we did was reveal the truth behind the lies that were presented in the report. The former was because so is this statement a lie to you that during a 5 year period according to occupational medicine statistics why since many immigrant workers were victims of occupational accidents then italian workers do you deny these statistics i dont think they are correct. But you dont think theyre correctable as no no because they arent real statistics. So you dispute the statistics but it was you yes or no and demanded that the commission. Removed this report from the internet yes because it is false as jim also it is false that twice as many immigrant workers are victims of occupational accidents than italian workers so we would need to verify that you dont know no no no youre elaborating the figures here. Id need to check the see for you before so tell me then what part of the report is false and there was a whole list of points presented to the commission. Such as i dont remember all the individual points that were made to prove the report was false so. You know there must be one or 2 false things that you remember. Madam im getting old. Thats all goodbye. When it comes to big fashion houses and their letter getting on says is decidedly difficult. But what about the other iconic luxury material. China is the worlds top producer if you really want to see what this industry looks like you need to go to dying. In the vast expanse of china dining is a very small town home 2100000 residents and 10000 businesses only to find. There are shopping malls full of coats. And slippers. Theres the mink faucheux room and most importantly we have the citys emblem the folks how ironic. You can also go to the market 3 times a month. Home over tens of thousands of animal skins all different shapes and sizes. I mean you hold thats right coonskin if you look at ridiculously low prices you look at your average you look at the 1st one here is 25. 00 you ones a piece you are not no longer makes the best in the market you wont find any better thing the only what you get out. 25. 00 yuans thats just over 3. 00 per animal skin. In china 70000000. 00 animals are killed for their fur each year and Animal Welfare isnt the countrys top priority. She. Works with peta the world famous and geo best known for its crackdowns on for. Half bath. I am this young activist is at the forefront of the fight against fur in china a country which is now peaches top priority. Going to have all eyes on dynasty so its not a malls are not protected phylicia there are no laws to control farming livestock and trace ship finds a way townsell so the whole of course there are other organizations like ours fighting against animal suffering that they are. Because theres no law we dont have an official spokesperson there military these animals dont have any protection or rights from when theyre farmed right up until when theyre carried i dont let us assume it will recall. Can you describe hygiene there i dont know if im clear with that. That the animals urinate and defecate in their cages hides how some may develop skin diseases because theyre cooped up inside or some of them go crazy. The point where they attack each other. And weve seen the bite marks on their skin from other animals only the trunk or. Shipping it the oil as soon as you enter these farms you are hit by a foul smell the intention to go flying is a trifling now can i just challenge and the way that you know just how and nobody cleans the animals. But which companies do these farms what food do major european brands use them. In this Luxury Fashion mall in beijing this plenty of choice of fur. Cuffs scarves all these strange looking fluff balls to be clicked on to banks. We had to max mara and they tally in brand new 2600 stalls worldwide. We even try on this lovely little jacket. Just what is this coat made of the rubbish for action everywhere was it made. In italy. No actually was made in china but with italian for. Italian fur thats the 1st version we are told next the store manager comes over. To i met us out while our 1st comes from a Certified Organization in denmark suffers. All of their fur is a good quality as its a Certified Organization each fur has to be checked. And thats why their fur is so good i know what i we always work with them mourning over the italian fur or rather the danish fur or maybe were not so sure anymore. After leaving the mall we decided to go straight to the sills we email max morrows Customer Service pretending to be a client and asked them directly this was their response we would like to inform you that our company is firmly committed to a process of continuous growth and improvement of our products regardless of where they are manufactured furthermore with regards to our fur we can confirm that we only source from certified suppliers. The answer is not very clear to move forward with our investigation we have no choice but to take a new approach. We head back to dying city following the trial of the max mara rabbit fur jacket. But this time we are posing as fashion designers weve even created a portfolio. From now on we will be filming discreetly sometimes with a hidden camera. We will go around factories making connections talking sketches and the ordering process but we cant seem to find anyone working for max mara. Then one morning across this courtyard we stumble upon a clothing manufacturer bingo we finally found the rabbit fur jackets of this luxury italian brand. Were one of the top marks mara suppliers in china. To work with them often weve worked with them for years and the boss is extremely proud of his max mara connections well call him mr lee so our max mara jacket is not made of italian or danish for it is from china is the chinese rabbit yes from shandong. We finally have our eyes. But this is just the beginning weve still not found the exact breeding farms. And we are yet to convince the boss to introduces to his supplies we are not off to a good start would take us and we might far doesnt all come from the same farm and its not worth going to see the farms trust me mark smart doesnt go and visit suppliers just doing what you can yeah you can inspect the fur right here and others not point in going all the way to the farm sort of thing you know the breeding conditions are bad youre only going to see dirty animals. We dont purchase the far directly from the farm or mens and we only buy ready 10 for. Mr leoni knows of one tannery when he still sees his fur off to 2 hours of negotiating he finally gives us the go ahead. Sell off fine you can go visit the white see tannery the manager will welcome you there. Is 250 kilometers north of dying. Were seeing is home to the countrys largest tannery. At the entrance polls of rakuten 1st drawing in the sun. And further on thousands of rabbit skins. How many 1st do you produce one day. In this part of the factory we produce 10000 furs a day but during peak times we can do up 230000 or more. 3000 employees work in this factory in most in the noisy aging stench of rockin carcasses. The animal skins are running from all over the country and sometimes even from northern europe. These workers and above all their salary one. The secrets behind our beloved maxim are a jacket our interpreter talks discreetly to one of the employees thanks kiran is 20 fend for animal skin. And he produces 1000 a day. So he earns about 200 u ones a day. 200. 00 chinese one barely 30. 00 a day not even minimum wage in china lets go back to the rapids at the back of the factory we find the 1st set aside for mr nader. Is this where you choose your firm for the next mara products yes i use some of it for marks mara and i resell the rest. How many 1st do you buy a year from x. Mara 50000 mr lee finally tells his where he gets his 1st from. This a want to do my trade merchant gets it for me youve been caught out from lindsay city. You must really like the for for many yes its very soft. This is mr lees trade much and he is the one who buys the fur for max mara in the movie remote provinces. But. I only get 1st from when you are mr leech. And if we want to visit the rabbit breeding farms it is him we have to convince. Voters do you think we could come with you to new york and. Finally after much discussion we have found out take it to. This region is one of the main rabbit supply zones breeding farms as far as the eye can see. Thanks to mr lees connections we go into one of them. This farm houses approximately 10000 animals multiple rabbits are often crammed together into one tiny cage. With never afraid theres no more room once ive sold a few rolls ill be able to have one drop of cocaine for them remember theyre your food there are no hygiene rules of thumb is. On another farm we find the same breeding conditions animal droppings are left to pola around the cages. Some of the rabbits show signs of breathing problems. Others have behavioral issues. To millions. Deformities for those rabbits destined for luxury life couldnt get much once. We all fall far away from max morrows elliptical phrase we can confirm that we only source from certified supplies. But all this is nothing compared to the death of the animals thanks to our much and we are allowed to enter the lean meat slaughterhouse. That noise you can hear is the sound of rabbit screeching. Their legs are often broken as they are hung upside down at the start of the slaughtering process next they are slaughtered. And less than one minute later they are skinned. These are all the skins used in mr lees factory this is the fire that ends up covering amongst other items max mara jacket. Is this luxury brand aware of the conditions in which these rabbits of forced to live and die the same rabbits used to make their fur coats we tried to get an interview with max mara but they refused and. As our investigation comes to an end we no longer see the world of luxury in point the same way. The tanneries of tuscany the breeding farms and slaughterhouses of china after all of this we are left with one question what if this Beautiful Image of luxury has been nothing but a dream. Yeah yeah. Yeah. Repeated new beginnings continue battleforce be off west and east germany 30 years after the fall of the wall. How competitive are the 2 economic regions what about salaries and of course the residents. A clue what happens cant everything changes. Made in germany a few minutes on d w. The goal is to be. To do to. Discover who. Subscribe. Documentary to. Im not nothing. But i stand up in. A culture. We take this ground one day ill eat because its all out there im rachael join me for me to. Play. This. Forging new alliances in the fight against Climate Change the day after the u. S. Confirmed its fallout from the. France and china sea side by side president. And being formed to support for the. 15. And still not for mass demonstrations in chile