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Ethical Clothing - The New Generation
May 15 2007
 ETHICAL CLOTHING THE NEW GENERATION
Celebrities are wearing it, chic magazines are writing about it, designers are devoting whole collections to it, even high street giants are wising up to it. Everyone is talking about ethical clothing but how many people know what it is and how to find it?
Ethical clothing is working without pesticides, having fair trading standards, paying fairly and re-using fabrics and using clothing that would otherwise end up in landfill sites.
People are realising that there is a high environmental and cheap labour price to pay for a high street full of low-cost clothing. These clothes are not being made with fabrics or stitching that will pass the test of time. We have developed a throw away attitude to fashion and a million tons of clothes end up in landfill sites every year, which is a disaster for the environment.
Not only do we pollute our environment with this attitude, but the textile industry in the developed world uses over 25% of the worlds highly polluting pesticides.
BUT ALL IS NOT LOST
There is change afoot, spearheaded by our amazing British designers. Katherine Hamnet is launching an entirely ethical range called Katherine E Hamnet (no prizes for guessing what the E stands for!)
Her latest collection is made from 100% organic cotton, grown by fair trade farmers in India, and produced using techniques that do not harm the environment. She believes that ethical clothing need not be expensive, and that throwing clothes away because they have gone out of fashion or have fallen to bits is a foolish way to live. Katherine feels very strongly that the true cost of cheap clothes is paid by the people at the bottom of the supply chain, both in human suffering and environmental degradation.
But it is not just our designers that are making a difference. Take a look at the high street. Ethical clothing is designed to have a minimum impact on people and on the environment, but is having a maximum impact on the fashion world. There has been an ethical fashion revolution, where formerly anti-fashion fashion has now become very cool and aspirational.
Marks and Spencer have fair trade cotton garments
Topshop have fair-trade cotton garments and pay the farmers a fair wage.
People Tree sell 100% organic cotton fair trade clothes online including the beautiful organic cotton jersey dress in the picture above for £38.
But dont let us believe that the attitude of the High Street is altruistic If we demand, they supply it is as simple as that. So use your wallet to make those changes.
Smaller suppliers of organic clothes that sell on the internet are also making an amazing difference to our planet. Check out Greenfibres in Cornwall for organic fabric, clothing, mattresses, futons, duvets and bedding. If we can all try to shop locally wherever possible and support our local small business it will make a difference.
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