ART3110 – Fashion Heroes

The documentary River Blue really shed some light on many points I never thought to consider. For awhile, I never realized how damaging to the environment the clothes I wear on a daily basis can be. In the beginning of the film, it is mentioned that 97% of the water on this planet is saline, 2% is frozen, and 1% is fresh. Sadly, it takes fresh water to make the apparel many of us enjoy. Even worse, many of the fresh water rivers located in countries like India, China, and Indonesia are so toxic that they are considered dead. It’s absolutely disgusting. Near the end of the documentary, the appearance of some Fashion Heroes was shown and they talked about what they are trying to do to be mindful of the environment and the clothing we wear. Although I am drawing a blank as to the Fashion Heroes who came up with these ideas that will follow, I still find what they are doing to be an incredible change to the way we treat our environment. Two things I found extremely interesting, and quite frankly brilliant, were the use of light and air to distress denim which lowers the carbon footprint immensely. The use of shell fish exoskeletons to help hold the dye in the strands of the denim was also an important discovery. With so much damage the human race has started to cause our planet since the Industrial Revolution, I want to be a person who is more mindful of where I get my apparel in the future. If change doesn’t begin to happen, I may end up living through a war that is not focused on control of people but focused on the control of the only fresh water left for us to drink.