Engineers are constantly developing new lightweight, durable textiles to be used in many facets of our daily lives. Manufacturers of airplanes and automobiles are increasingly turning to textiles, such as carbon fibers, to produce their new models. They rely on carbon fibers due to light weight and durable properties. For instance, the wing of an airplane might be metal, but many of the interior parts are made of carbon fiber. Aircraft engineers combine...

You give an old shirt or dress to a charity. Then, you forget all about it. But - without knowing it - you have had a huge impact on people you don't know, people throughout the world; and that impact is not all good. By following the strange, colorful, unpredictable voyage of one second hand shirt, Abloni plunges us into the huge worldwide business of second hand clothes.

"The story of humanity is the story of textiles-as old as civilization itself. Textiles created empires and powered invention. They established trade routes and drew nations' borders. Since the first thread was spun, fabric has driven technology, business, politics, and culture. In The Fabric of Civilization, Virginia Postrel traces this surprising history, exposing the hidden ways textiles have made our world. The origins of chemistry lie in the...

The killer bargain referred to by this hard-hitting documentary's title is the availability of cheap consumer goods, imported by Western companies, whose prices don't reflect the actual human and environmental costs associated with their production in the developing world. Consumers remain largely unaware of the conditions under which the goods they buy are produced; this film makes those connections shockingly clear. While some retailers and manufacturers...

For centuries Hmong people have lived in the mountains of China and Southeast Asia. They have in more recent history fled Laos as refugees and resettled in the Americas, Australia and Europe.

This film documents the lives of Quechua people who live around Ausangate, a sacred peak in southeastern Peru. It is based on anthropological research conducted over twenty years and reveals how the weavers make textiles encoded with symbolic images that reinforce ancestral beliefs during rituals and in everyday life. Four Quechua people's stories are told against a backdrop of high Andean lakes and mountains showing a harsh existence possible only...