5 films you need to watch on sustainable and ethical fashion

5 Essential Films on Sustainable and Ethical Fashion

The True Cost

In this eye-opening film, director Andrew Morgan, along with ethical fashion advocates Lucy Seigle and Livia Firth, asks, “Who really pays the price for our clothing?” The True Cost explores the exploitation in the fashion industry, including the 2013 collapse of the Rana Plaza factory building in Bangladesh, where 1134 garment workers tragically lost their lives.

The film reveals how the excessive profits made by some of the world’s largest clothing brands do not benefit the garment producers who risk their lives in dangerous working conditions to meet the global demand for cheap clothing. As the movie’s website states, “The price of clothing has been decreasing for decades, while the human and environmental costs have grown dramatically.”

Watch The True Cost to learn more.

RiverBlue

In RiverBlue, international river conservationist Mark Angelo travels the world to show the impact of the fashion industry and its dumping of toxic dyes, wastewater, chemicals, and carcinogens on the world’s rivers and the health of the residents who depend on them for drinking water.

Narrated by clean water advocate Jason Priestley, the film also presents sustainable solutions to the fast fashion crisis.

Watch RiverBlue and join the movement towards a more sustainable fashion industry.

China Blue

This 2005 documentary will make you reconsider the jeans you’re wearing and question how much of what you paid actually went to the person who made them. Filmed without permission from Chinese authorities, the documentary follows 17-year-old Jasmine and her coworkers, who work for less than a dollar a day in a jeans factory for nearly 20 hours a day, seven days a week.

The film also provides the perspective of the factory owner, who faces pressure from clients to meet unrealistic targets and deadlines. China Blue is part of filmmaker Micha X. Peled’s ‘Globalization’ trilogy.

Watch China Blue to learn more.

Minimalism

Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus of The Minimalists explore the culture of consumerism created by the pursuit of the ‘American dream.’ Minimalism questions how much happiness this dream brings and details the environmental damage caused by this pursuit. The documentary features interviews with various minimalists, including entrepreneur Jesse Jacobs, who shares the message that “you’re not going to get happier by consuming more.”