In 2007, Stacey Dooley’s mother brought home a leaflet looking for participants in a new BBC show called Blood, Sweat and T-Shirts. The show would be exposing young people from different backgrounds to the realities of the fast fashion industry. It would show them the truth that goes into producing garments by taking them to an Indian sweatshop. Before being on the show, Stacey worked at Luton airport on a perfume counter, having finished school at 15 with no GCSE’s. She admitted that she would save her wages to spend money on clothes. Stacey’s participation in the show not only changed her outlook on the world, but also her career aspirations.
Stacey’s connection with the people she was meeting in India working in the sweatshops warmed audiences’ hearts. She was truly moved by what she had seen in India. For her twentieth birthday, she organised a campaign to raise money for the children she had met in the orphanages in India. Blood, Sweat and T-Shirts was being trailed extensively by the media. As a result, she was invited to an interview with Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight. After the interview, she was contacted by the controller of BBC3. They commissioned her to do a two-part, 60-minute documentary on child labor. Her career as a journalist and documentary maker was beginning.
Since her first foray into television at the age of 19, Stacey has made over 50 documentaries. These documentaries cover a wide range of topics and issues, including the American prison system, child sexualization and exploitation, Yazidi Women, drug trafficking, and the fast fashion industry. She has taken on an ethnographic and empathetic approach in all the documentaries she has made. She forms real connections with the people to whom she is talking and limits her judgement to provide the fullest image possible on the subject matter for the viewer.
Stacey is an inspiration to girls all over the world who want to pursue careers in journalism or documentary making. Coming from humble beginnings in Luton, to The Greenhouse Media centre in Salford, her career has taken her on a global adventure. She has excelled in her career. In 2018, she won Strictly Come Dancing and published Stacey Dooley on the Frontline with the Women Who Fight Back.
-Megan Clout, Junior Girl