What's the matta with "Schmatta"?
Marc Levin is still finding pins under the floorboards of his loft in New York's Garment District. He ended up digging far deeper to find the hook for his latest doc about the economic crisis -- "Schmatta: Rags to Riches to Rags," a startlingly prescient history of the clothing industry from 7th Avenue to Bangladesh which airs on HBO on October 19th, having made its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival in September. Like a lot of American industries, the "schmatta" (Yiddish for "rags") business was once booming, but has diminished in the face of globalization, leading to the stunning statistic presented by Levin that now only five percent of all American clothing is produced domestically. As his documentary puts it, where the clothing business goes, so goes the economy. A year ago, Levin found himself at a Marc Jacobs show after hearing the news of Lehman Brothers' collapse....
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