Feature Photo Credit: Lavender Hill Clothing
I talk about sustainable shopping a lot, from the food you eat to the face creams you use; from the water bottles you drink from, to the bag you travel with. I’ll never get tired of saying this: Sustainable shopping is crucial for reducing our environmental impact.
As consumers, when we opt for sustainable products, we support brands and companies that prioritise eco-friendly materials and fair labour practices. Through our shopping habits and choosing to buy sustainable products and services helps in conserving natural resources, reducing waste, and minimising pollution, more than we can imagine. Plus, it contributes to creating a more sustainable and ethical future for all of us. Just think of it this way: If we buy more sustainably, those businesses are going to sell more than the traditional ones and be more successful. Hence, more people will buy from them too, so let’s get shopping (sustainably) and let’s spread the word through our friends and families too!
BUILDING A SUSTAINABLE WARDROBE
In the last couple of years, I’ve talked a lot about textiles and materials and which ones are good alternatives when it comes to choosing your fashion and home pieces sustainably. Unfortunately, many of you have come back to me saying that, most of the time, those sustainable alternatives are way more costly than the traditional (not so sustainable) ones. So in the last few weeks, I’ve been hard at work to find new ways for you guys to shop sustainably, without hurting your pocket. Fashion doesn’t have to have a cost on the planet, but neither on our wallets.
Transitioning from a rotating fast fashion wardrobe to a capsule wardrobe is a meaningful step towards sustainable living and sustainable shopping. Not only it can save you some money in the long run, but it will also allow you to carefully choose the few pieces you buy. However, I know it can feel overwhelming at first. As consumers, we are often influenced by advertisements and the pressure of consumerism to constantly buy new clothes for every season, event, or trend.
Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be this way. By following a few simple and accessible steps, we can simplify our wardrobes, spend less time and money on filling our closets, and focus more on wearing clothes that make us feel our best.
Declutter Your Wardrobe
To kickstart your minimalist closet, begin by assessing your current clothing selection. Sustainable fashion involves making use of what you already own and preventing clothes from ending up in landfills. When assessing what you have and deciding what pieces to keep, consider how frequently you wear an item and if it complements your envisioned staple pieces. In fact, keep only the clothes you adore and intend to wear regularly.
But of course, you don’t have to discard items just because they are from fast fashion brands. Simple alterations, like hemming, can breathe new life into old garments, even if of poor quality. Alternatively, you can sell your clothes online, donate to charity shops, or better yet, give them to someone in need.
Understand Your Style
Feeling confident and comfortable in our attire is crucial. When curating a minimalist capsule wardrobe, try moving away from seasonal trends and focus on a style that is uniquely yours. A genuine, timeless wardrobe will mirror your individuality and enhance your sense of self.
Consider: What message do I want my clothes to convey about me? Which fabrics and styles do I find most comfortable? What colours, prints, and accessories highlight my true essence and complement my personality best? Maybe even create a mood board featuring outfits and styles that resonate with your style and personality.
Shop For Staple Items
Ethically produced clothing from reputable brands may be slightly pricier than fast fashion due to the use of sustainable, durable materials and fair compensation for workers. However, this doesn’t mean these items are unattainable. There are several approaches you can take to make ethical shopping accessible, from shopping at second-hand markets, to saving for the pricier staple pieces such as jewellery or winter coats, to looking for sustainable brands’ deals and discounts. In case you didn’t know, every month, I give my email subscribers a list of the best deals and discounts out there – all from sustainable brands. So sign up here and start receiving my monthly saving tips too!
Take Care of Your Clothing
Fast fashion items often aren’t designed to withstand multiple wears, making it seem unnecessary to invest in caring for a garment under £20. However, with a minimalist wardrobe, it’s essential to maintain and care for your pieces properly to enjoy them for years to come. From hand-washing delicate items to investing in a steamer and wooden hangers, remember to always review care labels to determine which garments require dry cleaning and which don’t.
Rely on Your Community
One common challenge of maintaining a minimalist wardrobe is not having the right attire for special events or specific life stages. Whether it’s maternity wear, wedding outfits, or clothes for a unique holiday, sometimes we require attire beyond our everyday wardrobe.
Consider utilising online rental platforms, as I discussed in one of my previous articles, here. These services are perfect for rare and special occasions. Another approach is clothes swapping with friends, which I personally advocate for due to its sustainability and minimal environmental impact. Additionally, it’s a more enjoyable experience! To connect with like-minded individuals in your area who are also embracing minimalist wardrobes, explore local Facebook groups to find or organise a community clothing swap event.
START YOUR SUSTAINABLE SHOPPING HERE
As mentioned above, ethically produced clothing from reputable brands can sometimes be slightly pricier than fast fashion due to the use of sustainable, durable materials and fair compensation for workers. However, you know how much I love my research days and not only do I keep bringing you the best deals and discounts in my monthly newsletter, but I have also found a few clothing and accessories brands that are making ethical fashion way cheaper than what you thought it might be!
Lavender Hill Clothing
Lavender Hill Clothing creates luxurious staples that offer unparalleled softness and comfort, making them a favourite of mine. Each item is crafted from natural sources, ensuring a soft touch against the skin. The brand focuses on timeless, high-quality beautiful basics with styles, shapes, and shades that flatter every body type. Signature pieces like the Silk Tencel™ Modal Ribbed Roll Neck and the Print Lounge Set are designed to provide ease throughout the day. Lavender Hill Clothing also use biodegradable fabrics such as cashmere, and collaborates with small, family-run factories in the UK and Portugal.
The brand’s philosophy centers on respect, care, and kindness. They prioritize sustainable sourcing, ethical production, and encourage customers to recycle and repurpose their clothes. This autumn, they are including a Thrift+ bag with every order to promote repurposing, and from October to December, they will donate 15% of sales from their Heart Socks to Cancer Research for Breast Cancer Awareness. Lavender Hill Clothing is committed to supporting communities, championing causes, and continuously finding ways to do good while doing a great job.
One Essentials
ONE Essentials is a brand with a clear mission to revolutionise the fashion industry by addressing the most utilised, least considered, and often most disposable items in our wardrobes. Embracing individuality, the brand offers gender-neutral products for those seeking comfort in their choices every day and for the planet’s future.
Their philosophy revolves around maximum utility, minimal waste, and minimal harm, embodying the essence of everyday radicalism. No harmful toxins are used in their dyes; the fabric is Blue Sign accredited, the highest sustainable dye standard. They minimise the use of virgin resources by using a blend of 50% recycled cotton and 50% organic cotton, as well as replacing conventional elastane with a biodegradable alternative for a comfortable (and sustainable )stretch. ONE donates 1% of every sale to organisations dedicated to cleaning up textile waste in the global south as well as tracking its environmental footprint to understand the impact of each product.
ONE’s product line aims to disrupt the fast fashion culture by implementing circular design principles inspired by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and Cradle to Cradle methodologies. This ensures that all their products can be recycled or biodegraded when no longer needed. The brand has a recycling programme through which it collects old underwear from various sources to contribute to its sustainability efforts.
PLAINANDSIMPLE
PLAINANDSIMPLE creates premium quality everyday clothing designed to be recycled or composted, reducing waste and benefiting the planet. The brand emphasizes sustainability by ensuring their products are made in the most sustainable way and taking responsibility for their lifecycle from beginning to end. PLAINANDSIMPLE is dedicated to closing the loop on clothing waste and providing consumers with better, eco-friendly choices.
To produce the best products, PLAINANDSIMPLE collaborates with top factories that uphold fair labor practices, safe working conditions, and environmental responsibility.
They develop responsible supply chains, ensuring all suppliers meet stringent business, quality, environmental, and social standards. The Supplier Workplace Code of Conduct is based on International Labour Organisation (ILO) core labor standards, requiring compliance with laws in each country of operation. PLAINANDSIMPLE values transparency and provides detailed information about their manufacturing processes on every product page, including links to the factories and cost breakdowns.
Existential Thread
Existential Thread began in West London in 2018 as a quirky clothing brand, modest in size but ambitious in its ethical principles. Over time, the team and customers developed a fondness for the brand’s distinctive tiny embroideries. This unique feature became the focal point of the brand, whether it’s Tamagotchis, skydiving motifs, jacket potatoes, or moss balls, this brand offers a wide range of t-shirt staples with embroidered obsessions, allowing customers to wear their passions with subtle pride.
Ethical manufacturing is integral to Existential Thread’s operations. The brand prides itself on delivering PETA-approved, sweatshop-free clothing, packaged without plastic. Emphasizing a zero-waste policy, 90% of their products are made to order, minimizing excess production and reducing landfill waste.
Existential Thread is committed to giving back through its collaboration with Thread Ahead, a remarkable charity dedicated to minimizing fashion industry waste. This partnership helps redirect high-quality, new clothing to refugees in need, furthering the brand’s mission of ethical and sustainable practices.
Rentrayage
Rentrayage was founded on the idea of reimagining and revitalising what already exists, transforming discarded items into beautiful, valuable pieces with new shapes, forms, and styles. Inspired by Louise Bourgeois, the name “Rentrayage” is a French term meaning to mend or “make whole again.” The brand breathes new life into old clothes, vintage fabrics, and dead stock, going beyond mere reconstruction to establish a new way of thinking and innovative methods.
The collection, handcrafted in New York and Brooklyn, features one-of-a-kind or limited-edition pieces, maintaining a commitment to 100% sustainability. The brand also repurposes items returned by customers and donates unusable materials to Fabscrap, a textile reuse and recycling organization in Brooklyn. Supporting artists and artisans committed to sustainability, Rentrayage collaborates with partner brands that exclusively use recycled, upcycled, or regenerative materials.
Committed to ethical working conditions, Rentrayage produces its collection in small, fair-wage facilities in the United States and Europe, only partnering with factories personally visited to ensure onsite production.
Santicler
Santicler one is for your wardrobe staples, but it’s a little on the pricier side, but perfect for those staple pieces you look to buy only once in a few years. Think of a suit, a white shirt, or a winter coat. Santicler’s mission is to provide fashion enthusiasts with an alternative to what’s currently available in the market. Their parent company, Iconoclast Studio Inc, is dedicated to circular design principles and creating garments made from non-toxic materials that are easy to care for and come from renewable resources.
The brand only works closely with industry professionals and suppliers who share their values and goals. In fact, they require that all suppliers and manufacturers meet the European Union’s REACH regulation, which ensures that clothing and textiles are made without the use of dangerous chemicals such as heavy metals, mutagenic or reproductive toxicants, and carcinogens.
Each of their European mills is carefully selected for their sustainable and ethical practices, including the welfare of animals. Any sheep that produce their merino wool are not subjected to mulesing and from the inception of the brand, Santicler has been committed to never using fur, leather, angora, horn, or any other animal byproducts in their collection.
Their privately-owned factories, which are located across the Transylvania region of Romania, instead of manufacturing large quantities and selling only a portion, produce and fulfil small run orders based on specific demand, eliminating excess and waste.
Fanfare
Fanfare Label addresses fashion’s complex issues with a simple, fully circular solution that sets the standard for sustainability, emphasizing respect for both people and the planet. The brand is committed to fashion without compromise, offering handmade designs that showcase high-quality craftsmanship and personality.
Fanfare Label is renowned for its unique sustainable jeans featuring eclectic prints and vivid designs, screen-printed with sustainable inks, proving that ethical fashion can be colorful and fun. Their updated linen collection for SS24 builds on the popularity of their linen pieces, perfect for holidays, festivals, and road trips, helping customers prepare for hot weather and long summer nights.
Fanfare Label focuses on reducing waste by rescuing textiles from landfills and giving fabrics a second chance. They use innovative certified sustainable fabrics, such as OEKO-TEX certified cotton, eco-dyed with water-based inks, ensuring the safety and non-toxicity of their materials. The brand also strives to source deadstock materials from smaller enterprises, using these surplus fabrics to embellish jeans and upcycle garments, thus addressing the industry’s overproduction problem.
Neu Nomads
With sustainability in mind, Neu Nomads, a US-based brand, created an ethics-first brand with a commitment to sustainability and traceability. This mindfulness and dedication to their values extend from the fabrics to the factories; to packaging and ultimately to the products. Everything considered.
Their signature plant-based fabrics, such as Satin TENCEL, Eco-Jersey, Linen and 100% Organic Cotton Flannel, are sourced from sustainable and renewable natural resources and are naturally lightweight, breathable and washable.
Their signature Satin TENCEL™ fabric constitutes 85% of their collection and is dyed in a state-of-the-art dye house in India that adheres to the highest environmental and social standards. The factory is powered by solar energy and excess energy is directed back to the local community. Water used for dying is captured in reservoirs from the monsoon rains which is then purified and processed using non-toxic and AZO-free dyes. Nearly 90% of the water used during the dyeing process is recycled in a common effluent treatment plant. Sponsorship of the industrial park has been provided by grants in collaboration with the UN and European Commission through the SWITCH-Asia initiative.
Furthermore, the brand only uses 100% biodegradable bags to wrap their garments for shipping. All their paper packaging is made from recycled cotton fabrics that are sourced from local garment factories and repurposed into 100% recycled paper. By working directly with its suppliers and keeping overhead costs low, the brand is able to bring us essential products of exceptional quality without the traditional markups, while looking after fair labour practices throughout its supply chain too.
Happy Earth Apparel
Happy Earth Apparel is committed to the most sustainable practices available. They don’t use polyester in their loungewear, but only organic cotton that is consciously farmed without any chemical pesticides or fertilisers, and it’s regularly watered by rainfall. These organic practices allow the cotton to grow naturally, and the surrounding environment to continue to thrive.
Furthermore, 95% of their products are made in Fair Trade-certified factories, and they make sure that all of their suppliers uphold workers’ rights and abide by Happy Earth’s rigid Code of Conduct based on principles from the International Labour Organisation.
The brand is also fully cruelty-free and on top of that, they only low-energy options like organic cotton, sea shipping, and lightweight packaging; working closely with manufacturers that share these goals. Their factories run on solar energy and natural gas (instead of diesel), substantially reducing GHGs. Anywhere they can’t avoid emissions, they invest in clean energy projects to completely offset too. You can find out more about these projects here.
Paneros Clothing
Paneros Clothing, a US-based company, is dedicated to creating sophisticated and elegant sustainable women’s fashion. Their mission is to craft high-quality, unique, and limited-edition sustainable pieces that highlight a woman’s individuality. By using durable environmentally-friendly materials, such as Tencel and Rayon, and timeless designs, they produce clothing that can be worn season after season.
The brand’s commitment to sustainability extends to all aspects of the business, positioning it as a nearly circular fashion brand. They are transparent about their processes, successes, and challenges, striving towards complete transparency. For their exclusive women’s collection, for example, they only utilise deadstock Tencel and Rayon sourced globally. Collaborating with skilled artisans and ethical manufacturers, they offer consumers exquisite styles that benefit both customers and the planet.
Zulu & Zephyr
This US-based brand is another organic womenswear one, perfect for all of you minimalists out there! Zulu & Zephyr’s collection is comprised of 93.6% accredited fibres such as GOTS Certified Organic Cotton, GRS Certified Recycled Cotton, GRS Certified RecycledPolyester, EUROPEAN FLAX® and Better Cotton Initiative (BCI) Cotton. Overall, their current collection boasts 94.5% plant-derived fabrications that are naturally biodegradable with zero synthetic content, while the other 5.5% contain synthetic fibres, the majority of their synthetic use is certified recycled.
Furthermore, the brand supports plenty of charitable causes and is part of 1% for the Planet since 2020. They even update their sustainability report seasonally on their website for transparency reasons, which you can view here.
J’Evar
Crafted meticulously with lab-grown diamonds that are carbon-neutral, and set in recycled gold and silver, J’EVAR jewellery is not only fashionable but also eco-friendly, aligning with today’s sustainability standards.
J’evar is dedicated to upholding the highest levels of ethical and social conduct while prioritising environmental conservation. Unlike traditional diamond mining, which disrupts around 100 square feet of land per carat, J’evar’s production methods leave no impact on the soil. Additionally, the injury rate among workers in lab-grown diamond operations is zero, in contrast to one in every 1,000 workers in earth-mined diamond mines. The brand follows SMETA audits to ensure compliance with labour practices, health and safety regulations, environmental assessments, and ethical business conduct, with a strong emphasis on social responsibility.
In comparison to mined diamonds, lab-grown diamonds conserve significant natural resources like carbon emissions and water. J’evar also opts for recycled gold and sterling silver, minimising the need for new metal production and reducing associated climate effects. By using recycled metals for most components, J’evar maintains quality and purity without further harm to the environment, promoting sustainability and a unique kind of beauty.
Astor & Orion
This jewellery brand’s sustainability practices truly go above and beyond! Astor & Orion are the sole jewellery company I could find implementing circular design, 3D sculpting, and third-party certified manufacturing to establish a comprehensive sustainability plan.
Their process commences with recycled metals during the casting phase. More than just using recycled metals, they focus on designing jewellery that can be easily recycled again. This approach avoids using stones or other materials that would hinder metal recycling. They have collaborated with a metal recycling centre in Seattle to transform all their old jewellery into new metals, ensuring they can be reused multiple times. Customers even receive credit for returning items towards purchasing new pieces from the brand.
Beyond its recycling efforts, this brand stands out in sustainability through eco-friendly packaging, thoughtful design, and various manufacturing certifications, making it a true leader in sustainable practices within the jewellery industry.
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