Quick Ways to Identify Sustainable Clothing Brands

While consignment stores, thrift shops, and buying clothes secondhand online are all great options, navigating new sustainable fashion can be confusing. For many brands, full information surrounding labor standards, textiles, and supply chains can be hard to find. While it’s definitely helpful (& really interesting!) to fully understand the life cycle of clothing, we’ll save that for a podcast. In the meantime, here are some easy, telltale ways to understand if a brand meets the mark on sustainability.

IF YOU HAVE 5 MINUTES

Use Good on You

This app and website is a game changer and does a great job of breaking down a brand’s impact on the planet, on people, and on animals in an easy, dynamic way. It’s the most convenient eco-friendly encyclopedia that you can use on the go.

Become an Eco-Age Member and access Recommended Brands

Eco-Age is a great way to stay up to date with sustainability focused news, lifestyle hacks, and fashion trends. Beyond standard news articles, you can also become a member for free and have access to the Recommended Brands directory. You can easily filter products by cause or category to find clothing, hotels, jewelry, beauty products, swimwear, and more.

Look into Re/make

Re/make is a 501(c)3 non-profit that believes fashion can be a force for good. Check out their list of sustainable brands here.

Work Backwards

Many times, it’s helpful to understand new, innovative sustainable fabrics and look at the webpage for that company to see which brands they partner with. For example: Econyl has a list of apparel brands they have worked with, so you can go to any of those brands and purchase products made with the fabric.

IF YOU HAVE 10-15 MINUTES

Email your favorite brands or read brand reports

Email your favorite brands! Ask them the questions you actually want answers to, and if they don’t answer, let that speak for itself. Many brands also share public reports detailing long-term plans to transition to more sustainable fabrics, production methods, and packaging. Reading through these reports is a great way to learn what a brand currently does and is looking to do in the future. It allows a brand’s values to really shine, however…

Remember that transparency is not the same as sustainability

While transparency is great, keep in mind that what a brand intends to do is completely different from what it is currently doing. If you finish a report and feel like you learned nothing or that there might be hints of greenwashing, the best thing to do is to take a look at the fabrics being used in a garment and also do a few searches into the brand’s production standards.

Fabrics that are (generally) better for the environment: Tencel, Hemp, Linen, GOTS certified organic cotton, Econyl, rPET, Lyocell

Stay tuned for a full breakdown on fast-fashion and how businesses are adapting (or not adapting) for the growing demand for cleaner fashion.