Back to School!

I'm back at ACAD (now that Alberta University of the Arts) for another textiles class. It's called Salvage/Selvedge and we're looking at the practical aspects of textile production and design. To start things off, we watched a couple of documentaries. Learn along with me and stay tuned to the blog :-)

The True Cost is an hour and a half long scathing looking at the often invisible human and environmental impact of fast fashion. The textile industry has always had a huge environmental footprint, but, it is only within the past ten years that the footprint has increased dramatically. From fibre production to processing to purchasing, the fast fashion industry is incredibly unsustainable and one of the largest polluters on the planet. It is amazing the producers were able to fit in such a wide survey of the textile industry into one documentary. They talk to workers, growers, factory owners, environmentalists, fashion designers and more to demonstrate the clothing continuum--and conundrum.



However, it's not all doom and gloom with the textile industry. There are lots of creative people out there working to reduce the impact or invent new processes. The Next Black is a forty five minute documentary with a very optimistic view of the future. Biocoture! 3D printing! Waterless dying! The film was made about five years ago, so it will be interesting to see where the next five years takes us.