This Docuseries Put Fashion Bloggers to Work in a Sweatshop

Well, this is a vastly more documentarian approach to reality TV than your standard Real Housewives squabbling: the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten put a trio of fashion bloggers to work in a sweatshop and filmed their experiences.

According to Refinery 29, the web documentary series Sweatshop: Dead Cheap Fashion sent a trio of young Norwegians, Frida, Ludvig, and Anniken, to Cambodia. They lived with sweatshop workers and worked alongside them, as well. The trailer is jarring, combining footage that looks like a late-competition international trip on America’s Next Top Model with scenes of the three travelers crying over what they’ve seen. In an interview with Pulse (run through Google Translate, so, grain of salt on the phrasing), director Joakim Kleven explained:

It was extremely difficult to come at all in any factory inside. The only factory that has let in us, was one of the best in Cambodia, but that was not ok. It was very hot in there, there was no toilet paper in the toilets and the chairs on which the seamstresses and seamstresses had to sit were extremely uncomfortable. Some workers have told us that soldiers stood during her shift already behind them and they would have beaten for sewing, so much so that some of them were unconscious.

The series has already caused a stir in Europe, with more than a million views. H&M has also felt it necessary to come out and trumpet their ethical sourcing efforts, denying it buys from any of the shops featured. Check full episodes (with English subtitles) here.