Eco Friendly Fashion

Around 66 per cent of consumers value sustainability when purchasing luxury products, reports The Business Research Company (2020), while multi-brand online luxury shopping site, Lyst, has seen a 37 per cent increase in searches for sustainability-related items. Simultaneously, fast fashion retailers have seen a drop in sales (LIVEKINDLY, 2021), with shoppers increasingly aware of the link between their behaviours and global warming. The problem is so vast that individuals sometimes feel that they can’t make a difference, yet the future is not as bleak as they think. Many companies are making great strides in lowering their carbon footprint. Indeed, ‘Go green or go broke’ is the motto that any entity wishing to stand the test of time will have to adhere to. Read on to discover the advances being made in this sector.

WORDS MARISA CUTILLAS

Approximately 8.8 million tonnes of mismanaged plastic enter the world’s oceans every year and the vast majority of it is singleuse. Discarded fishing nets are one of the most dangerous forms of plastic pollution since they injure or kill over 650,000 aquatic animals annually. California-based company, Bureo, has come up with a brilliant solution. Working alongside fishing communities in South America, the company collects, cleans, and shreds fishing nets in Chile, recycling them into NetPlus® – a material that provides supplemental income to local communities while also providing raw material for the wares of fashion companies

like Patagonia. The latter uses this material for hat brims. Swimwear brand RubyMoon also uses discarded fishing nets (and plastic bottles) to make their garments, while Swedish brand Isbörn uses fish traps for its ultra-sturdy jackets, each of which is meant to be worn by at least three people (expect to find three name tags on every item).

Industrial farming and the chemicals used therein are another main cause of global warming. Imagine if the farming industry could switch from fossil fuel-intensive farming to organic, no-till, and low-till practices that create a healthy soil system and draw carbon into the ground. Fashion company, Patagonia, is definitely a standard-bearer in this regard, as it is currently piloting its first cotton crop in India on over 150 farms, aiming to rehabilitate soil, boost animal welfare, and enhance the lives of local communities. The brand uses virgin organic cotton (completely free of herbicides and pesticides), recycled cotton (taken from scraps left on factory floors), and various additional recycled materials – including polyester (which reduces the reliance on petroleum-based products), nylon (discarded from weaving mills), and down (diverted from landfills).

Stella McCartney

If we are to save our planet, we must put an end to the ‘throwaway’, single-season mentality when it comes to clothing. Simply designing an item that can be worn for various years is an important step in the right direction. International fashion brand, Eileen Fisher, is spearheading the ‘Circular by Design’ concept, which involves a variety of measures – including taking clothes back. The brand has collected over 1.6 million of its own pieces since 2009, for resale or remanufacture into new designs. They also specialise in simple, timeless configurations that don’t fall out of fashion.

Around one-quarter of the items the company takes back is damaged, so its ‘Renew’ team deconstructs them and sews them into limited-edition pieces. The ‘Waste No More’ team, meanwhile, transforms other collected items into wall hangings, pillows, and other accessories. “Just imagine the impact if every company took their clothes back and turned them into new designs,” said company founder, Eileen Fisher.

Mycelium

The fashion industry has been notoriously cruel to animals in many ways, with practices such as mulesing subjecting animals to indescribable pain. It doesn’t have to be this way when a brand has a heart. Take Sheep Inc. – a company that assigns every person who buys one of their jumpers to the sheep its wool came from. Sweaters come with a digital NFC tag and customers are sent regular news about ‘their sheep’. The brand complies with standards set by ZQ ( a prestigious wool certification standard that supports animal welfare, environmental sustainability, the use of quality fibre, traceability, and social responsibility). ZQ sheep graze freely on pastures and are well-fed, living healthy, natural, pain-free lives. Speaking of kindness to animals, check out Pangaia’s vegan puffer coat, made with stuffed flowers instead of feather down. The jacket keeps wearers cosy in temperatures as cold as -20ºC!

Another interesting fabric is MycoTEX, made of mycelium (the vegetative part of mushrooms). Mycelium is carbonnegative and can be naturally dyed to any hue. It is particularly useful for people with sensitive skin because it is naturally antimicrobial. Moreover, mycelium requires very little water and energy to grow. The World Wildlife Organisation reports that one cotton T-shirt typically takes 713 gallons of water to make. A T-shirt made of mycelium requires only three gallons. There are many more materials being used to make biobased alternatives to popular products. Fashion house Pangaia is working alongside the scientific company, Kintra, to create a 100 per cent biodegradable alternative to polyester.

Leather is a co-product of the unsustainable meat industry, which accounts for around 14.5 per cent of all human-created greenhouse gases. The good news is that the vegan leather industry is going strong and has a predicted worth of $89 billion by 2025. Plastic-free vegan leather is the material of choice for fashion companies with a green heart, with sources including mushrooms and pineapple. One of the most popular natural textile fibres is Piñatex, made of pineapple leaf fibre. It is currently used by brands like Hugo Boss, Po-Zu, and Nae.

Consider if the fashion industry could have a positive impact on global warming, instead of simply aiming to reduce its current carbon footprint. Regenerative farming is one step in this direction but there are many more – including the biomaterial AirCarbon, which is made by combining air and greenhouse gas to replace oilbased materials like plastics. The technology is based on processes used by methane-loving ocean microorganisms, which create material inside their cells by covalently bonding carbon and oxygen dissolved in water. Covalent bonding is essentially the sharing of electron pairs between atoms. One brand that is using this chemical process to create minimalistic luxury bags and accessories is Covalent. The founders state that each product they sell is “a physical manifestation of greenhouse gases.”

Another fascinating technology is biogarmentry – the use of living, photosynthetic cells that turn carbon dioxide into oxygen. One brand that has embraced this technology is Roya Aghighi, which makes clothes from algae with an aim of transforming consumers’ relationships to their clothing. To make the fabric, single-cell green algae is spun together with nano polymers to create a very fine, soft, linen-like fabric that is activated via exposure to sunlight. Instead of washing these items, consumers spray them with water once a week, caring for them as they would a house plant. It makes sense considering these garments are literally alive.

Toxic synthetic dyes enter waterways, with the documentary RiverBlue stating that over 70 per cent of rivers in China are polluted owing to chemicals coming from textile and garment factories. Toxic dyes also pose an unacceptable health problem for the people who work in these factories and for surrounding communities and they are capable of penetrating entire food chains. The use of natural dyes (and safe, non-metallic mordants that fix dye onto fabrics) is an important way to reduce pollution and diminish the amount of water used by fashion companies. One brand showing the industry how it’s done is DyeCoo (based in Weesp, near Amsterdam), which dyes fabric without any water at all. Instead, it uses carbon dioxide in the process. When CO2 is heated and pressurised, it becomes ‘supercritical’ (it enters

a state that is between liquid and gas). In this state it has a high solvent power, meaning it can easily penetrate into fabrics and dye them beautifully and vibrantly.

Fashionistas with a green heart are probably buzzing with excitement about the many advances made in the sustainable fashion industry. From living clothing right through to regenerative farming, there are many innovations in an industry that has traditionally caused so much harm to the planet. Make sure you are part of this exciting movement by foregoing fast fashion in favour of brands that show an authentic passion for making this world a better place for future generations.

Imagine clothing that is fully biodegradable and compostable within just eight weeks. It is already a reality thanks to London-based brand, Vollebak, which has designed the ‘Plant and Algae T-Shirt’ from pulped eucalyptus and beech obtained from sustainable forests. Once you’re done with this cool looking garment, bury it in the soil and it will completely break down in 12 weeks. Better yet, throw it into your home compost heap, where it will ‘disappear’ in just eight weeks. The shirt is printed with algae that change colour as time passes. The reason? “As the original source of all plant life on the planet (algae) consumes carbon dioxide and produces up to 80 per cent of the oxygen on Earth.” e