Like film producer Keegan Kuhn, I followed filmmaker Rebecca Cappelli’s journey around the world in the film Slay about how much cruelty lies behind the glamour of the fashion world, with a slow and unfolding sense of horror.

At the end of the film Cappelli, sits at her clothing cupboard and concludes that if she wants to be true to her new convictions garnered from her three-year investigation into the link, she needs to rethink her wardrobe.

This came after one of her conclusions in the film is that at least 2,5 billion animals a year are killed for fashion’s sake. This includes 1,4 billion animals that are killed to keep fashionistas in leather.

Cappelli’s wish for the film is that it empowers “a mainstream audience to accelerate change thanks to existing solutions.”

No one can be untouched by her relentless search to find the truth behind the tanneries of the world to bring home the tragic facts behind brand names such as Armani, Dior, H &M and Zara.

She went to India’s capital of leather production, Kanpur, and unmasked the health tragedies that unfolded through the years for these factory workers in tanneries. In Pakistan, she learnt Michael Kors and Kate Spade are supplied their leather from “dangerous” sources, as she was told repeatedly by workers.

Cappelli also went to the back streets of French towns to discover the secret tanneries and slaughterhouses from which leather would find its way to the catwalks in the French home of fashion, Paris. She also shows the stark contrast between the much wanted ‘Made in Italy’-label on leather goods and the slaughterhouses in the supply chain.

She concludes that consumers have come to think of leather as a by-product of the meat industry and this has somehow normalised their thinking about animal cruelty.

Cappelli also casts her unerring eye on the fur industry. By letting the fur lobby express their views, she shows them to be an industry comfortable for making animals disappear into fashion without admitting the cruel practices behind the more than 4 000 fur farms in Europe. She also travels to Shanghai to show the continuing and expanding cruelty behind the $61 billion fur industry in China which include the selling of raw raccoon and wolf pelts.

She interviews an investigator who has infiltrated the fur trapping industry in Canada who tells her about the horrors of seeing fur animals as well as other indiscriminate animals die a slow, suffering death in vicious traps to keep the fashion rails full.

Cappelli does not spare the wool industry either. She gives a thorough rundown of how wool processes damage the environment as the fatty deposits need to be removed before it can be used. This use of detergents leads to streams and rivers becoming toxic with effluents. She moves on and touches on animal welfare abuses in slaughterhouses where sheep skins become byproducts for those who want wooly slippers and sheep skin linings to jackets.

The investigative team also demonstrates the cruelty lambs endure when mulesing takes place. Mulesing is the removal of skin around a lamb’s rump to provide permanent resistance to fly strike in Merino sheep. This is mostly done without painkilling medication and considered by animal rights groups a cruel practice. Cappelli also follows a group in New Zealand who goes out on cold nights and illegally trespass on farmers’ properties to rescue newly born lambs who will probably die because of the cold. Thankfully this practice is prohibited in South Africa.

Incredibly upsetting to Cappelli are the cruel measures taken when wool is harvested from angora wool bunnies. It is here where she comes back to the parallel that she draws about how she loved bunnies as a child but somehow never realised when she was an adult, how cruel the wearing of such a wool sweater might be.

She concludes that ‘normalised cruelty’ can lead to consumers disconnecting from the fact that fashion can lead to suffering.

It is then that a changed Cappelli tackles her cupboard and, in a heap, soon lie branded clothes from Fendi and other animal cruel brands as well as pure leather boots and bags.

Close to the film’s end an established British model and anti-fur activist, Lucy Watson, says: “Awareness is the key to transformation.”

Did this film transform that part of me that now and again after so many years working for woman’s magazines still yearns after a bit of the glamour of being trendy, stylish and elegant? Did I throw out a few items?

Yes definitely: A leather jacket, a pure wool jersey, some Nike sneakers and a few pairs of boots. Is this going to change the world? Of course not! But it will change me. For me it now remains if I want to #WearItKind to buy pre-loved clothes from vintage stores , faux fur for an edge or trimming to a jacket if needs be, leather alternatives like pleather (plastic leather) or recycled leather, and cotton knits.

As one of the influencers in the film says: “What is important, is your next fashion decision.”