The 2 Netflix Documentaries that Started My Sustainable Fashion Journey

When I first started hearing about sustainable fashion and about how we need to make the industry more sustainable and ethical, I was a bit confused. So I began watching documentaries to learn more about all the different issues and to start thinking about how I can have a positive impact.

Here are the two documentaries (plus a few others at the end) that I think are game-changers and that urged me to think about the impact I have on our planet. So, if like me, you're starting to reflect on these issues but don't know where to start, then read on.

The True Cost (available on Netflix)

This one, is mind blowing.

The central question of the documentary is: who pays the price for our clothes? Who is paying for that 5€ t-shirt you bought last month? These are questions I had never asked myself before watching it.

The True Cost tells the story about the clothes we wear: how they are made, where they are made and by whom.

It explains about how the fashion industry became so unsustainable and so unethical. It brings to light the shocking impact what we wear is having on our world.

It talks about why the price of clothing has been decreasing in the past couple of decades. It shows how the whole process of creating clothes, the people who make them. It’s about the clothes we wear, the people who make them, and the impact the industry is having on our planet.

The True Cost is a great place to begin your sustainable fashion journey.

Minimalism (available on Netflix)

This is the second documentary I watched after I began thinking more about how the clothes I bought were affecting the people and the planet.

In this documentary, Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus, aka The Minimalists, explore the issues of overconsumption and the benefits of minimalism by “taking the audience inside the lives of minimalists from all walks of life”.

How might your life be better with less? That's the question posed by the movie and that I asked myself after I finished watching it.

The message is not to live with NOTHING. It is to live with what you need and what brings you more, on the long-run (and not just the rush of adrenaline you get when shopping).

It does encourage you to declutter, and I felt a huge need to detox my wardrobe. But thinking about what I was learning about sustainability I knew throwing it all away was not the option. Donating it was not the best either. So I decided to stop buying new clothes for some time and to fell back in love with what I owned already.

Not being dictated by the trends and the need to buy new shiny things felt great. It gave me a burst of creativity as well, and I stopped thinking I "had nothing to wear".

I've bought new clothes since then, clothes I have chosen purposefully, with intention. Clothes I have been looking at, thinking about for weeks, even months sometimes. Clothes I know I love, will cherish and wear until they become a pile of dust.

On my sustainability journey, I've also watched, and would highly recommend, Blackfish, Cowspiracy, What the Health, Fed Up (this one literally blew my mind), Virunga and the Ivory Game. These documentaries have all helped me start to understand critical environmental, societal, animal welfare and health issues we are facing right now.

Special mention for Sir David Attenborough's Planet Earth series, which are the most remarkable and poetic movies I have ever watched. These taught me how fragile and valuable our Earth is and how important it is to protect it.

There are still tons of documentaries out there, so if you have any recommendations, let me know in the comments below.