Guilt free reading and watching: brush up on your sustainability knowledge with these titles available from Polimoda’s Library. Study environmental and social responsibility in fashion through the lens of colonialism, mass production, nature, sociology, human behaviour, design practices and more.
BOOKS
Overdressed the shockingly high cost of cheap fashion, Elizabeth L. Cline, Portfolio Penguin 2013
A research based and anecdotal account of how the fast fashion system works. Cline tells enjoyable stories from her own life as well as the shopping habits of friends and peers to precisely explain key concepts of retail practices. She travels the world visiting the places where fast fashion is made, examining the differences in luxury and cheap fashion via testimonies from YouTubers and scrutinizing the activity of some of the biggest fast fashion brands around.
The Hidden Life of Clothing Historical Perspectives on Fashion and Sustainability, Rachel Worth, Bloomsbury Visual Arts 2023
A historical overview of fashion manufacturing with interesting references to literary and cultural figures. By exploring the genesis of industrial fabric making, the meaning and production of clothing labels, the industrial system’s effect on our appreciation and perception of beauty, and a section on language and its connection to clothing, this is a refreshing take on sustainability, rooted in history while using unconventional writing and poetry references.
Worn: A People’s History of Clothing, Sofi Thanhauser, Allen Lane 2022
A social history of clothing through the lens of five different types of fabric; linen, cotton, silk, synthetics and wool. Thanhauser time travels from Louis 14th’s court to modern-day labor camps in China. She explores ancient dyeing techniques and today’s garment industry, underlining how it has become one of the world’s most harmful for people and the environment, while also highlighting the small communities and manufacturers that act as beacons of hope for a more sustainable future.
Consumed the need for collective change: colonialism, climate change & consumerism, Aja Barber, Balance 2021
This book is divided into a ‘learning’ and an ‘unlearning’ section: in the first section, the reader is exposed to endemic injustices of consumer industries as well as the historic human cost of the textile industry linked to slavery and colonialism. Barber reveals where our money really goes when we consume fashion. The second half of the book takes a more psychological vein, revealing why we buy the way we do, linking it to a collective sense of lack, and how we engage in consumption rather than compassion. She also offers suggestions to how we can take back ownership of our buying power, using it for good instead of the exploitation of resources and people.
Us & our planet: this is how we live, Maisie Skidmore, Phaidon 2022
In collaboration with IKEA, this book is a worldwide study of how people live. From Mexico to Moscow, Bali to Beirut, the author searches for ways in which how we live in our homes can be improved, directing us towards a more sustainable and responsible end goal.
Fashion-ology : fashion studies in the postmodern digital era, Yuniya Kawamura, Bloomsbury Visual Arts 2023
An essential text for anyone studying fashion, sociology or anthropology, Kawamura’s book offers an introduction to the sociology of fashion. The author explains how the fashion system works while assessing its impact on all areas of society and culture via topics like subcultures, technology, social media as a tool for consumption, fashion’s relationship to race, class and gender, de-Westernizing fashion, and sustainability and the environment.
Fashion Fibers: designing for sustainability, Annie Gullingsrud, Fairchild [Bloomsbury] 2017
A technical reference tool for fashion students and designers that looks at fibers in depth, going over production and product life cycle. This book features a guide to natural fibers like cotton, hemp, and silk, manufactured fibers like polyester, modal, and azlon, as well as recycled fibers that are made to be circular. The chapters traverse cultivation, production, and processing, and the industry’s chemical and water use. A comprehensive study of the environmental impacts of each stage of the fibers life cycle means that this is a detailed guide to the threads of what makes fashion.
Circular design for fashion. Ellen MacArthur Foundation, Ellen MacArthur Foundation, Ellen MacArthur Foundation Publishing 2021
This book aims to provide a new mindset with which to approach design. From the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, a UK-based charity that develops and promotes the idea of a circular economy in order to tackle some of the biggest challenges of our time, such as climate change, biodiversity loss, waste, and pollution, it showcases pioneering fashion designers and brands, from independents to luxury conglomerates from all over the world. With beautiful graphics, it gives suggestions and instructions for designers to move to a circular mindset and instill practices which reduce the impact on our planet.
Films
2040, Damon Gameau (2019)
This film looks at what 2040 could look like if we were to make the climate solutions we have to hand mainstream and practicable. A hopeful outlook, structured as a letter to the director’s 4 year-old daughter, this traditional documentary style is dotted with dramatized scenes and visual effects to create an honest, hopeful, and motivating view of how things could be if we just got our act together and committed to solving the climate crisis.
An Inconvenient Truth, Davis Guggenheim (2006)
Al Gore brought the climate crisis to the mainstream via this Oscar winning documentary directed by Davis Guggenheim. He explains how humans have ruined the planet and its ecosystems, urging action quickly and immediately. Now almost twenty years on, his call is scarily just as relevant as it once was.
The True Cost, Andrew Morgan (2015)
An eye-opening journey from catwalk to slum, this documentary tells the story of the human and environmental cost of the multi-billion dollar fashion industry. Including interviews with designer Stella McCartney, and activists Livia Giuggioli and Vandana Shiva, this film investigates who really makes our clothing and what their lives are really like.
David Attenborough: A Life on our Planet, Jonathan Hughes, Keith Scholey, Alastair Fothergill (2020)
British broadcaster and celebrated naturalist David Attenborough looks back on the changes in the natural world throughout his lifetime. Examining some of the biggest challenges our environment is facing, this feature documentary studies the nature we’ve lost while sharing a hopeful message for the future by revealing solutions to help our planet from the disaster we are inflicting upon it.