Conscious Consumer Resource Guide

When industry transparency is minimal and the pressure to keep up with fashion trends is at an all-time high, it can be pretty damn overwhelming for consumers to make sustainable, ethical and conscious decisions when shopping for clothes. Ultimately it's the smallest changes we can make that have the most powerful impact (because they stick). ⁠

We’re here to provide consious consumer resources to help our community make informed buying decisions. Below you'll find a list of resources about fashion consumption and the global impact it has on the environment and exploited populations. 

Education creates empowerment, and empowerment helps us make better choices and advocate for change. We live on this earth every day and as consumers, every day is a chance to advocate for it by what we buy or don't buy. We can either be pawns of the corporations and fall prey to marketing—or we make choices based on information we seek out and challenge the systems in play (we prefer this method). While social media is a nice way to show we care, ultimately our actions are what we will be measured on.⁠

We hope this guide can help you and we can continue to help it evolve. ⁠Ultimately consuming less is critical to sustainability. ⁠

 

Books

• Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Fast Fashion by Elizabeth L. Cline
• And Cline’s follow up  The Conscious Closet
• Fashionopolis: The Price of Fast Fashion and the Future of Clothes by Dana Cline
• Consumed by Aja Barber
• Unraveled: The Life and Death of a Garment, by Maxine Bedat
  
  
  

Articles

• Ultra-fast Fashion Is Eating the World, The Atlantic
• The High Price of Fast Fashion, The Wall Street Journal

Organizations

• The Story of Stuff
• Fashion Revolution
• Behind The Label
• Clean Clothes
• The Or Foundation
• Remake

Digital Publications

• The unCover Handbook, a guide to Sustainable Fashion  
• How to be a Fashion Revolutionary
• Fashion Transparency Index 2020
• Fossil Fashion - Understanding Plastic in Fashion 

Films

The True Cost of Fast Fashion, 2015 - "This is a story about clothing. It’s about the clothes we wear, the people who make them, and the impact the industry is having on our world. The price of clothing has been decreasing for decades, while the human and environmental costs have grown dramatically. The True Cost is a groundbreaking documentary film that pulls back the curtain on the untold story and asks us to consider, who really pays the price for our clothing?" The True Cost.

The True Cost is an unprecedented project that invites us on an eye opening journey around the world and into the lives of the many people and places behind our clothes.

The River Blue 
2017, Following international river conservationist, Mark Angelo, RIVERBLUE spans the globe to infiltrate one of the world’s most pollutive industries, fashion. Narrated by clean water supporter Jason Priestley, this groundbreaking documentary examines the destruction of our rivers, its effect on humanity, and the solutions that inspire hope for a sustainable future.

Unravel 2015 - Where do our donated or cast off clothes go? This movies explores their journey east, across the oceans they originally came on. This movie explores one destination, India’s industrial interior.  From the Kutch District of western India to the northern city of Panipat, garment recyclers turn into yarn the huge bales of clothes that come from people and places distinctly strange. With little exposure to Western culture other than the Discovery Channel, the garment recyclers rely on their imagination and the rumours that travel with the cast-offs to create an an intriguing perspective on the West

The Clothes We Wear

We live in an age of hyper-consumption, and nowhere is this more obvious than the fashion industry. ‘Fast fashion’ is the buzzword these days. Driven by glossy advertising campaigns, many consumers are constantly buying new clothes. New collections are arriving on the market at an ever increasing rate - many of them at rock-bottom prices. And if you believe the information campaigns run by some of the textile giants, consumers can now buy with a clear conscience. It’s become trendy for clothing labels to tout their green credentials, advertising eco-friendly labels allegedly made according to strict environmental standards. But is it all genuine? Two reporters go undercover to find out what’s really happening in the textile factories where many clothes destined for the European market are made. They discover the extent of the environmental devastation caused by the industry and how companies are making a profit from the fact that sustainability sells.