It’s here!! View the trailer and buy your copy of The True Cost
**It’s Friday night, my husband has a work dinner, and I just watched this. I may have also had a little wine, so you may take that as part of an explanation for how emotional I am, but please watch this movie. Please please please. It does a wonderful job of taking into consideration issues we’ve discussed here before, including concern about workers everywhere, and are we to just boycott buying clothing from Bangladesh after Rana Plaza? or should we try to influence change in other ways? what other ways? it does not answer that question, but it does make me think about the system as a whole – and that at the heart of it, consumption is the problem. We have gotten too used to feeling “rich” because we can buy cheap shit, but at what cost? There is a very real human cost to cheap clothes. And not just cheap clothes, we (all of us and the environment) are paying the price for over-use of pesticides on cotton. That was jarring. How many people must die to make our clothes? Cheap or not? ….. I’ll put a more coherent post together about this next week, but please take the time to watch The True Cost. And share it with everyone you know.
I haven’t seen this yet, but it’s on my agenda for this evening. How about we make it a new Conscious Closet Challenge? Watch it with me this weekend and let’s discuss it next Thursday!
The True Cost is a documentary film about the impact of fashion on people and the planet. Filmed in countries all over the world, from the brightest runways to the darkest slums, and featuring interviews with the world’s leading influencers including Stella McCartney, Livia Firth, and Vandana Shiva, The True Cost is an unprecedented project that invites us on an eye opening journey around the globe and into the lives of the many people and places behind our clothes.
Via Eileen Fisher, if you visit Take Part and use promo code TAKEPART you can download and/or watch the movie for free. Please go to Take Part and enter your email address and read more about it.
Let me know if you plan on watching it! I look forward to discussing it next week.
Happy Friday 🙂
Just hit the site and says the code was used FYI…Doesn’t matter I don’t have an issue paying for it, just letting you know…
I got a code also and was going to post it here b/c I don’t have time to watch the film. It’s the same code though. The fine print says that it was for the first 1000 takers, so it’s probably “used up.”
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I fully intend to watch it. I’m hoping it will get a wider viewing audience on PBS through Frontline or some other vehicle.
I wanted things to change after the tragic loss of life at Rana Plaza, among other labor-related disasters, but I haven’t personally done enough yet to make that change. There’s got to be something MORE we can do!
Looking forward to the discussion.
Well, in doing my part to support sustainable clothing production, I received my Emerson Fry caftan today and LOVE IT! The fabric is beautiful.
I definitely want to see “The True Cost,”but have another movie to recommend–more along the lines of minimalism. I watched “Something, Anything” on Netflix, and it was an incredibly thoughtful, moving film about a woman who is a realtor in Knoxville, and goes through some life-changing events that make her move away from her typical middle-class, consumption-filled life (there’s a great scene of them unwrappnig their wedding gifts). It was lovely, and I’m sure something you can relate to living in the middle of suburbia in the South.
http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/something-anything-2015
oh!! going to watch that movie today. thanks for the recommendation!!
Do you think you’ll get your caftan altered now that you have it? did you get the charcoal one? or the white one?
I got the charcoal caftan, and I don’t think I will alter it–I like the way it fits.
I’d previously bought a caftan-type top that was just too too big and just didn’t drape right, and looked like a tent. I don’t think this one does, though I might be fooling myself. 😉
ALSO–here’s another blog that I wanted to mention to you if you haven’t seen it:
http://www.accidentalicon.com/
She wears great outfits with interesting proportions and silhouettes, and I can only hope that I can look as cool as she does as I get older. Here’s one of my favorite outfits:
http://www.accidentalicon.com/blog/2015/4/15/accidental-icon-details-of-an-ordinary-life
So we watched the movie last night, it’s very good. The depictions of the workers in some of these countries is shocking. What dawned on me was the WOMEN are the victims and the main PERPETRATORS here.
I do think there is way too much emphasis on consumerism especially targeted to women.
One missing piece I thought, is how we can change this. No advice given on how to shop responsibly. Obviously the message is buy less but what else?
Anyway, good flick, recommend and love to hear what others think.
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yes. that struck me too – women are the victims, primarily – women & children – and yet, we are also the primary perpetrators because of our consumerist habits. it’s a simplistic explanation, definitely, but i do believe that if we bought less, and didn’t require things to be soooo cheap, these issues wouldn’t be as big as they are today. consumers do have a great deal of power. BUT…it’s the cycle we’re in now, with marketing and advertising encouraging us to treat more things as disposable, and that we always have to have the latest, new, thing to feel “good” and to fit in.
as far as what we do about it…honestly, i think we just try to be a conscious as possible with regard to what we add to our wardrobes, and try not to be wasteful (like i outlined in this post). also educate ourselves on who makes our clothes, and determine from there what part WE want to play in that. i have lots more to say…more Thursday 🙂