Sustainable Fashion Brands

Sustainable fashion refers to a more environmentally friendly approach to designing, manufacturing and consuming clothes, making sure we cause little to no harm to our planet and don't use up all its natural resources. Sustainable fashion also focuses on extending the life of clothes, using recycled materials and recycling in general.

To start talking about this topic, we have to go back to the history of how sustainable clothing started. At the start of the 20th century, mass manufacturing appeared, and in the 1950s the consumer society emerged, characterized by an increased production and consumption rate thanks to marketing.

That is when a kind of sustainable fashion movement started. Since the late 1960s, there have been rebel movements against consumerism, starting with the hippie revolution, which supported natural fabrics and a simpler way of life. It was followed by the punk and gothic movements of the 70s and 80s, which also rejected the traditional idea of fashion, preferring unique second-hand and vintage pieces. But in the 1990s, fashion became cheaper and more accessible than ever, production and consumption rates accelerated even more and that means that fast fashion was born.

At the same time, eco-fashion movements, closer to the sustainable fashion movements of today, started to appear. Years later when the Rana Plaza in 2013 society started realizing how bad the fashion industry had become.

Nowadays, there are many movements and organizations which helps to realize how harmful our consumerist society has been to the people and our planet. The sustainable fashion movement is gaining in importance, and more and more consumers are reducing and changing the way they consume fashion.

Slow Fashion has been a growing trend, advocating for a more holistic approach to fashion and a slowing down of the rate at which we produce and consume. The awareness of clothes lifecycle is also growing, leading to vintage clothes shopping becoming more and more accepted and fashionable.

Many clothing brands are changing their business models, supporting the circular economy and trying to convey this message to consumers. Fashion brands must engage consumers in sustainability to be truly efficient.The future of fashion will make sense in the way fashion garments are made, how they are used and how they are disposed of or reused, from start to finish.

Associations like Greenpeace are expanding awareness and helping to drive change within the fashion business. In addition, the extent of decision making, accessibility, openness and perception of sustainable design is constantly expanding. Business applications and websites are also making it faster and less demanding for buyers to buy organic design.