Title:
"Chasing Beauty: The Price of Fashion and Lost Identity"
Description:
In a world obsessed with trends and perfection, many girls follow fashion to fit in or to please others. But in this pursuit, something precious is lost — their natural beauty and unique identity. This video explores how the desire to be seen as beautiful can lead to self-doubt, pressure, and eventually losing what made them special in the first place. Watch this eye-opening story and rediscover the power of staying true to yourself.
Tags:
#FashionPressure #NaturalBeauty #BeYourself #TrueBeauty #IdentityCrisis #FashionTrap #BeautyStandards #LostIdentity #GirlsAndFashion #SelfLove #InnerBeauty #ModernFashion #TrendyButEmpty #SocialMediaEffects #BeautyMyth
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00I've always loved fashion. It's a way of expression, an art form that allows for identity development and pride, even for evolution.
00:25We all wear clothes. We all say something to the world in what we choose to clothe ourselves in.
00:32I came to appreciate fashion more deeply working as a model.
00:37But I also became more conscious of the fast pace of fashion, of the hidden costs behind our clothes.
00:44I became increasingly uncomfortable promoting it all. Fast fashion, thoughtless fashion, unjust fashion.
00:53So, I decided to shift paths. I began working only with ethical brands to produce photo shoots, while helping others make kinder choices.
01:03At the same time, I began fostering orphaned lambs, those who had come from the meat and wool industries.
01:10This is how Willow and Claude came into my life.
01:14They are how I decided to look more deeply into the knitwear we keep warm with in winter.
01:20After so many nights of bottle feeding little lambs, after so many cuddles, I wanted to combine my passion for fairly made clothes with something I could do for them, or for those like them.
01:32A lot of knitwear is made of wool. And wool, of course, comes from sheep.
01:39Men and mobs from the paddocks and the plains, beyond the hills and over the river.
01:44Men from Gundaga and Cootamundra, bringing in the mobs for the sheep.
01:49Wool is thought of with a lot of love here in Australia, and we're the top exporter of it all across the world.
01:56When most of us think of where wool comes from, we think of fluffy sheep in rolling green pastures, grazing happily, living well.
02:04We think of a caring farmer, tending lovingly to their flock, and of the iconic shearers who harvest wool.
02:11Australia, we're told, was built on a sheep's back.
02:15There is, however, what I found to be a dark side to wool.
02:20Every winter in Australia, 10 to 15 million newborn lambs die in the first 48 hours of their lives,
02:29mostly due to exposure, starvation and neglect.
02:33I was shocked when I first learned that lambs are routinely and legally mutilated without any pain relief,
02:40in ways more distressing than you can imagine.
02:43What worried me more than any of this, though, was finding out that the wool industry is a slaughter industry.
02:50It turns out, wool and meat production are entirely intertwined,
02:56with all wool-bearing sheep being considered dual purpose by the industry.
03:01Even the iconic merino.
03:13Some sheep are shorn before they're killed as lambs.
03:16While others are kept for wool growing, shorn regularly for several years.
03:21And unfortunately, extreme shearing cruelty has been endlessly documented.
03:26Only halfway into their natural lifespan, a sheep's wool ages and brittles, just like our hair does.
03:33Lower quality is lower profits, so these sheep are cast for rage and killed.
03:38What's more, while 30 million lambs and sheep are slaughtered every year in Australia,
03:43hundreds of thousands more are sent on gruelling live export ships.
03:48Everyone ends up at a slaughterhouse. The only question is when.
03:55We all need to make choices about what we want to support when we dress ourselves.
04:00I decided that this is not something I want to support.
04:03Today, more and more people are choosing the same and buying and designing fashion-free from animals.
04:09I decided to bring more options into the world that kept sheep like Willow and Claude safe.
04:18I decided I would make my own knitwear as ethically as I possibly could.
04:22I'd also use it to support more projects for good.
04:26My first thoughts were on the raw material. If it wasn't wool, then what else was out there?
04:38I found a lot of alternative fibres made of synthetic materials. Acrylic, polyester.
04:45They're produced from fossil fuels, and millions of tiny microplastics are released and head into our waterways every time we wash them.
04:52They're far from nature's pick. So I knew I wanted to make knitwear out of plants.
04:57That way, anything I made would quickly biodegrade without polluting the earth.
05:02But I didn't know what plant was most ethical or sustainable.
05:07I looked at hemp, bamboo, organic cotton.
05:11I read about horrific human rights violations on some overseas fibre farms.
05:16Forced labour, child labour, misleading labelling and false certifications of supposedly organic fibres.
05:24That was when it dawned on me.
05:26It makes the most sense to support Australian farmers.
05:29They're right here, battling drought, bushfires and floods, growing the crops to feed and clothe us.
05:35I'd save carbon emissions sourcing fibre from home.
05:38And best of all, I'd be able to learn everything about the ethics and sustainability of the farm.
05:44I'd be able to go and see it for myself.
05:46So after months of research, I decided that I was going to work with Australian plant farmers.
05:52More specifically, cotton farmers.
05:54But despite the theoretical knowledge I'd gathered,
05:57I didn't know just how much work goes into growing the cotton in my underwear, my jeans or my t-shirt.
06:03I wanted to speak to someone with hands-on experience.
06:07I feel very lucky to have connected with Renee and visited her farm in Emerald, Queensland.
06:13Renee is a cotton farmer and an advisor helping other cotton farmers work sustainably with the land.
06:19The only animals on her farm are her dogs and cat.
06:23She's also one of the most energetic and friendly people I have ever met.
06:28My grandparents were farmers on both sides of the family.
06:32I spent much of my childhood growing up working on their farm during school holidays.
06:38It was something I really loved from a really young age and I really enjoyed spending time with my granddad.
06:44He had sugar cane, grew tomatoes, had beef cattle.
06:49And so I spent most of the time in the cropping and driving tractors and planting with him.
06:55So it was really a special part of my childhood.
06:59Renee's cotton farm stretches across 500 hectares of land.
07:03When I visited her, 90 hectares of cotton was planted.
07:07So this here is a fully irrigated cotton field and it's not far off being harvested.
07:13So we'll probably begin early February.
07:18So we do a rotation of different crops.
07:20It's really important for soil health, for your weed management, for your disease management.
07:25We really have the potential to grow any sorts of crops.
07:28Beautiful, heavy cracking clay soils.
07:30So yeah, we could grow wheat, sorghum, chickpeas, popcorn.
07:35Rotational farming of plants helps the soil stay fertile, well structured and nutritious.
07:42Nitrogen fixing crops like chickpeas are especially important because cotton needs nitrogen to thrive.
07:48These food crops fix and release nitrogen into the soil, acting as a natural fertilizer.
07:54This was my winter crop, my winter chickpea crop, and it was harvested in October.
08:01And you can see here, all the stubble residue is left over.
08:05In a really hot, dry year, like we're having at the moment, it's really important.
08:10It's sort of good sun protection for the soil.
08:12It stops any, not that we've got any moisture in the soil, but it would normally prevent moisture loss.
08:19It stops that soil erosion through wind.
08:22Another plant grown on Renee's farm is pigeon pea.
08:25To her, or more specifically to bugs, it's a refuge crop.
08:30One which protects cotton and its pest resistant traits.
08:34The point of pigeon pea is to be flowering throughout the season that we're growing cotton.
08:40And it flowers indeterminately.
08:42So there will always be attractive flowers and potting for the Heliothus caterpillar to come and feed on.
08:51So it's basically making a home that's better for them than the cotton, so that the cotton stays protected from them.
08:58Yeah, so they will like the cotton.
09:01However, this is a really attractive crop for the caterpillar.
09:05I grow a genetically engineered crop with a Bt protein in it.
09:10Bt is a naturally occurring soil bacteria that's been put into the plant, and it's a pest resistant crop.
09:17Bt is a natural, biological bacteria.
09:21It's actually sprayed on top of cotton plants grown in organic systems.
09:25In Australia, this Bt protein is packaged up inside the plant itself, which means it doesn't need to be sprayed for bugs anywhere near as much.
09:33Running the farm this way makes for a far happier environment compared to the Australian cotton farms of about two decades ago.
09:40Now that cotton farmers are using 97% less insecticides.
09:45So one of the benefits of the GM cotton that I grow is that it's pest resistant,
09:52which means that basically I don't need to apply pesticides for the Heliothus caterpillar.
09:58So it's already built into the plant and the chances of needing to spray are sort of zero to none for that particular pest.
10:06Sometimes we may get secondary pest insects such as aphids or whitefly, but that's generally quite late in the season,
10:14and by that time we've got such a good build up of beneficial insects because we haven't needed to use any chemistry during the season,
10:21that they will generally control themselves with the beneficials moving in.
10:26All of these practices focus heavily on soil health, and for good reason.
10:31Fertile soil is essential to life here for us all, and the soil here is pretty special.
10:37Some parts of Rene's farmland are dedicated to wildlife corridors, untouched nature that encourages biodiversity.
10:45Even the recycling dam, used to capture and reuse irrigation water running off the end of the field, is a home to wild animals.
10:53To produce the same amount of Australian grown fibre, wool requires about 367 times more land than cotton.
11:03The Wilderness Society reports that over 90% of land clearing is for the pasture which cattle and sheep graze.
11:11This all made me realise the importance of more land-efficient, plant-based agriculture, which would allow more space for renewable energy farms, for carbon farming, for rewilding, and for the making of homes for native animals and plants.
11:26Just like people talk about the methane released from the wool industry, people talk a lot about cotton's water use.
11:34While in some places, even in Australia, cotton is just rain-fed, irrigated cotton does use a lot of water.
11:41But so does growing many crops, not to mention animal agriculture.
11:45Cotton farmers also don't get access to water until communities, the environment, animal farmers and fruit tree farmers have first.
11:53Well, we can't grow a crop if there's no water, and we don't grow a crop if there's no water.
11:58Any crop that I grow on my farm relies on water being in the Fairburn Dam and having an allocation to grow that.
12:06It's been a really hot, dry year, and like most of New South Wales, Queensland's also in drought, and unfortunately the Fairburn Dam is really quite low.
12:19It's less than 10%. So I have no allocation from the dam this year.
12:24Unfortunately, with the hot, dry weather and no rainfall, we've actually pulled 23 hectares out.
12:30I assume that that is stressful.
12:33I guess it's just how it is.
12:35Yeah.
12:36Yeah.
12:37If it doesn't rain next year or the year after, there's no income on the farm.
12:44Yeah.
12:45That's stressful.
12:46Yeah.
12:47Renee's farm is certified under the Better Cotton Initiative and the MyBMP, or Best Management Practices, an Australian cotton certification that demands 300 best practices covering worker safety and rights, biodiversity, soil health and more.
13:03Over 80% of Australian cotton farmers participate in MyBMP.
13:07There's lots of different areas on the farm that's covered within that, and we get audited by an independent auditor.
13:15So not only does it cover sustainable environments on the farm, but it also ensures our workplace health and safety.
13:22For us on this farm, it's really important that our workers are looked after, so they receive fair working conditions and fair working wages.
13:34Once Renee's cotton is picked, it's ginned, separating the seeds from the fibres.
13:39These seeds can be turned into an oil used in cooking, while the fibre is sent down from emerald to Geelong.
13:47Sadly, there are no commercial spinning mills left in Australia for cotton, but Dr Stuart Gordon and his team at the CSIRO agreed to spin their magic for me.
13:57The CSIRO operates the last short staple cotton spinning mill in Australia, used for science.
14:03If we could spin again in Australia, we could reduce carbon emissions and ensure greater transparency, fair living wages and work safety in the production of what keeps us nice and snuggly.
14:14My name's Stu Gordon. I'm a Senior Principal Research Scientist at CSIRO Egg & Foods Business Unit.
14:21I look after the cotton space largely in the post-harvest area.
14:25It's so well adapted for our use as a covering and clothing. It's unbelievable.
14:31It's already separated as a fibre. It doesn't need to be cleaned too much before we spin it.
14:39It has a wax layer that preserves the fibre and makes sure the fibre carries through the mechanical processes of spinning and protects it so it doesn't break any further.
14:51It's lovely in white. It's pretty flexible, pretty rugged and high premium.
14:58So cotton spinning, the process of turning your fibre harvested into yarn, is an old process.
15:05I think the first spinning processes probably came out of Lancashire in the 1700s.
15:10With the process itself, essentially you take the bale of cotton.
15:13The bale of cotton from the gin comes into the mill directly. It doesn't need any further processing to start in the mill.
15:19It's opened and part of that opening process is the cleaning process.
15:24And then from there, from the opening and cleaning, it goes through carding.
15:28And carding starts to separate the fibres from their bundles, their compressed bundles, into individual fibres.
15:35And it starts to align the fibres.
15:37That alignment continues through the drawing and combing processes.
15:42And then most Australian cottons are spun on the ring spinning system, which is the oldest system,
15:47and produces the sort of finest, softest, strongest yarns.
15:52And for that purpose, from combed sliver or carded sliver, it needs to be converted to roving,
15:58and then the roving bobbin, and then the roving is the last sort of intermediate before spun yarn.
16:04The great thing about cotton is the fact that it has a wax layer.
16:08And this wax layer lubricates it all the way through the spinning process.
16:11And it means that you don't need to touch that.
16:15No water really comes in, no wet processing comes into the spinning mill at all.
16:19Unlike, say, for example, wool or even hemp.
16:26Once cotton is spun into a yarn, it needs to be twisted into a different yarn.
16:31One that's a bit thicker, more cosy and ready to be knitted.
16:35A not too long drive from the CSIRO took me to industrial yarns, where this process happens.
16:41Three yarn cones are combined into one that's triple the thickness.
16:46While this cotton is going to stay undyed, making it the most sustainable choice,
16:50and a beautiful one at that, some of the cotton is turning forest green, grey and brown.
16:56That's happening just 20 odd minutes away at Leading Textiles.
17:01The dye is a blue sign and Erkotex approved, protecting the planet.
17:06They contain no heavy metals that would impact the biodegradation process.
17:11That's another thing I didn't know.
17:14Biodegradable materials could become not so, just depending on how they're dyed.
17:19Next, comes the knitting.
17:22We need to consider who makes our clothes, because only 2% of garment workers around the world are paid a fair, living wage.
17:30Mostly women of colour make our clothes, so this is both a feminist and racial justice issue.
17:36When it came to finding ethical knitwear production in Australia, I found my way to a machine.
17:42This is a whole garment knitting machine.
17:45It can reduce yarn waste by just under 30% compared to conventional knitwear production, and it can knit fast.
17:52All it needs is a clever brain behind it.
17:55A brain like Patricia's.
17:57Patricia runs Knit Melbourne, and she works with a small team to code the machine to knit exactly what we want it to.
18:06This facility is Ethical Clothing Australia accredited, ensuring that Patricia, and everyone else involved, is treated and paid as they deserve for their work.
18:18It took a lot of time and digging to work out how to make knitwear in a supply chain that was totally transparent, and that told a story I was proud to tell.
18:29A supply chain full of fluffy plants and friendly people, of whom I got to meet everyone.
18:35It was harder than picking a yarn online made from something I hadn't thought much about, that I didn't know the origin of, or the hurt it may have caused.
18:44It was more difficult than dropshipping pre-made garments or paying next to nothing for them to be made somewhere I had never stepped foot inside.
18:52But this is the responsibility of anyone in the fashion industry.
18:57It's not right to produce and sell, or to buy clothing that we don't know anything about.
19:04Clothing that could be funding things out of alignment with our values.
19:10Those choices need to be informed, transparent, better for the planet, and everyone living on it.
19:17I've always loved fashion.
19:20It's a way of expression, an art form that allows for identity development and pride, for revolution.
19:27We all wear clothes, and we all say something to the world in what we choose to clothe ourselves in.
19:34I hope that something is kind.
19:36I hope that something is kind.