If you haven’t watched it already, this is a must see. It’s up on Netflix and probably across a few other places. A key, quick takeaway: we buy too many clothes, we pay too little for them and we’re exploiting other humans in the process to build our wardrobes. Fast fashion is new to our modern world; it’s not how it always was and it’s not how it always has to be. It is impossible (and unethical) to sustain.
The film explores what happens back in the farming fields, through to garment manufacturing and the end of life – the problems charity donations are causing and our resulting landfill. There are many, many issues relating to fashion and of particular concern outside the exploitation of labor (which needs to stop right now), and the issue that much of our clothing is now made from plastics, is the fact that we have grown accustomed to cheap clothes and that buying more expensive items simply isn’t accessible to so many of us… which leads us back, as it nearly always does, to our economic system.
We need to continue working on that as a world but for those of us that can – we need to buy significantly less and when we do buy, save little amounts throughout the year to purchase something quality that will last for years, dispose safely at end of life, was made ethically and has a low cost per wear (and plenty of local thrift shopping and swap parties!).