Three of My Favorite Sustainable Fashion Brands!

General Information on Fast Fashion:

You may be wondering, what is fast fashion? According to Merriam-Webster, fast fashion is an approach to the design, creation, and marketing of clothing that emphasizes making fashion trends quickly and cheaply available to consumers. As seen in the name, fast fashion focuses on a trend or a clothing item that is not made to last a long time, so it is necessary to purchase more clothing items more frequently. Fast fashion deeply harms the environment for many reasons. One of which is its carbon emissions: 10% of humanity's carbon emissions are produced by the fashion industry. This causes global warming, climate change, and a variety of other things. Additionally, the fashion industry is the second-largest user of the world’s water supply. Many gallons of water go into making a simple T-shirt or a skirt. The fashion industry uses around 1.5 trillion litres of water annually. Not only does the fashion industry waste water, but the dyeing process pollutes different bodies of water such as rivers or streams with harmful chemicals. Similarly, around 85% of textiles ultimately go into landfill. Overall, as demonstrated by the excessive water use, harmful byproducts, and amount of carbon emission, the fashion industry, especially fast fashion, is terrible for the environment. 

My Top Three Sustainable Brands:

1. Reformation 

Reformation has been 100% carbon-neutral since 2015, meaning that they reduce as many carbon emissions as they cause. To determine how environmentally friendly their products are, they use something called the RefScale, which compares the environmental footprint of their products to similar ones bought in the United States. Additionally, they recycle about 75% of their garbage and do simple things to limit their environmental footprint such as using reusable bags in stores and recycled paper hangers. Separately, Reformation clothing is super cute and chic. It is fun to wear to nice events and you are able to tone it down as well with a jean jacket or sneakers. Although Reformation is on the pricey side, they do a lot to reduce their carbon emissions and be more sustainable.

Black Jeans

Green Dress

Blue Dress

2. Patagonia

Patagonia has a goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2025. The cotton they grow is grown organically which means there are little to no chemicals used on it. Furthermore, 68% of their line uses recycled materials to reduce water waste and to help promote sustainability. Finally, they have many programs designed to help the environment and ensure the durability and quality of their clothing. One of these programs is called the Supply Chain Environmental Responsibility Program which is used to reduce the environmental impacts of manufacturing (chemicals, water use, energy use, greenhouse gases, etc.) and measures the impact of manufacturing on the environment. There are other programs like this one. Apart from the environmental benefits of shopping at Patagonia, it has perfect outdoorsy clothes, comfy jackets, and all around neat items. All in all, Patagonia has done a lot to be more environmentally friendly and has great goals to keep up their work.

Black Jacket

White Jacket

3. Levi’s

Levi’s marks certain products as sustainable and has put in an effort to reduce water use and turn waste into clothing. In terms of water use, Levi’s uses cottonized hemp, which requires less water than actual cotton, so it is beneficial for reducing water use. The last step of making jeans requires large amounts of water, so Levi’s created a Water<Less® program that has saved over 3.5 billion litres of water since 2011. Separately, Levi’s has turned plastic water bottles and waste into jackets in order to recycle and become more environmentally friendly. On a style basis, Levi’s has trendy jeans and a variety of basics that will always be in style. In general, Levi’s has done a variety of things to reduce its carbon emissions and environmental footprint. 

Blue Jeans

Black Jeans

Ripped Blue Jeans

In conclusion, it is important to know who you are shopping from and how they work to be more sustainable. Be on the look out for a future blog where I write about less known sustainable clothing brands!

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