Arcadia Earth Calls Out Fashion And Its Unsustainable Thirst For Water

Forbes

14-04-2025

Arcadia Earth is debuting the first installment of its four-part immersive film at the Liberty Science Center's planetarium from April 19-27, offering a 360° exploration of humanity's relationship with nature.
Fashion is one of the largest consumers of freshwater in the world. From cotton farming to textile dyeing, the industry uses approximately 79 billion cubic meters of water annually, enough to meet the needs of 5 million people for an entire year (World Bank). Arcadia Earth has been a proponent of the sustainability conversations around fashion, with a pop-up in Soho, New York City amid the pandemic, that became a hub for productive talks with circularity around fashion being the topic of choice.
Arcadia Earth is debuting the first installment of its four-part immersive film at the Liberty Science Center's planetarium (the largest in the Western Hemisphere) from April 19-27, offering a breathtaking 360° exploration of humanity's relationship with nature.
In Arcadia Earth's A Vision for Tomorrow four-part film, the "Water" segment, launching in June as part of the exhibit at Liberty Science Center where viewers can explore this film, informs viewers and immerses them in fashion's dangerous addiction to our planet's dwindling freshwater reserves. Arcadia Earth's 360° film merges cutting-edge art, science, and technology to create visceral experiences of environmental crises.
Arcadia Earth is debuting the first installment of its four-part immersive film at the Liberty Science Center's planetarium. The visionary behind the project, Valentino Vettori ensures the film resonates with both emotional impact and creative innovation.
The "Water" segment's call to action is amplified through a partnership with American Forests, in which viewers will discover a QR code linking directly to their reforestation initiatives, transforming awareness into tangible action. The visionary behind this experience, Valentino Vettori, brings unique authority as both a fashion insider, having held creative leadership roles at Diesel and Century 21, and an immersive design pioneer creating installations for Coterie, Cabana, and Summit LA.
Arcadia Earth is debuting the first installment of its four-part immersive film at the Liberty Science Center's planetarium from April 19-27, offering a breathtaking 360° exploration of humanity's relationship with nature.
This dual expertise informs the film's unprecedented ability to make invisible supply chain impacts feel immediate and personal. Through stunning 360° visuals, the film makes tangible what most consumers never see: the literal draining of rivers, the poisoning of watersheds, and the human cost of our clothing's hidden water footprint.
Arcadia's immersive experience shatters the illusion that water is an infinite resource. Viewers find themselves surrounded by virtual cotton fields stretching to the horizon, as the film reveals a sobering truth that each cotton bud siphons precious groundwater from already-parched regions. Notably, cotton is a water-thirsty crop that can revive dry lands, or conversely, ruin nutritious land.
Arcadia Earth is debuting the first installment of its four-part immersive film at the Liberty Science Center's planetarium (the largest in the Western Hemisphere) from April 19-27. The visionary behind the project, Valentino Vettori, brings a unique perspective as both a fashion industry leader (Diesel, Century 21) and an experiential designer (Coterie, Cabana, Summit LA), ensuring the film resonates with both emotional impact and creative innovation.
Those scenes then shift abruptly and the lush fields retreat as water tables drop, leaving cracked earth where life once flourished. The transition is surreal, and in a moment the film takes us to vibrant indigo dye vats; the next, you're submerged in toxic runoff as it spills into what was once a thriving river. Arcadia Earth and this film are staying true to its roots of showing rather than telling, as it did with its immersive NYC pop-up from August 2019 to December 2020. The film expressed that 20% of industrial water pollution is caused by textile processing. It makes us witness the neon-tinged waste suffocating aquatic ecosystems in real-time.
Arcadia Earth is debuting the first installment of its four-part immersive film at the Liberty Science Center's planetarium. Founded by Valentino Vettori, this film brings a unique perspective as both a fashion industry leader (Diesel, Century 21) and an experiential designer (Coterie, Cabana, Summit LA), ensuring the film resonates with both emotional impact and creative innovation.
As the mirror is being held to the viewer, strikingly, the segment of overconsumption stands out. Garments materialize and vanish in rapid succession a visual metaphor for fast fashion's disposable culture. But the water wasted on these short-lived trends doesn't disappear, as it accumulates in staggering virtual pools that dwarf the viewer. This film delves into the idea that every discarded shirt, and unworn pair of jeans, represents liters upon liters of irreplaceable freshwater squandered.
Arcadia Earth transcends dystopian warnings by showcasing transformative solutions whether it's drought-resistant cotton thriving with minimal water, closed-loop dye systems that recycle every drop, and digital design eliminating physical waste. As the virtual waters clear, viewers gain true transparency about fashion's impact.
This immersive experience exposes a crisis, empowering audiences to demand sustainable change from the industry. The question grows as we wonder if fashion can evolve and if we will be able to redefine what's fashionable. Witness this intrinsic journey through an exclusive preview of the "Water" segment in June, or fully immerse yourself during Earth Week, April 19 to 27, at Liberty Science Center's planetarium, where fashion's hidden water crisis becomes undeniably real in front of your eyes.