small brands lead charge of sustainable fashion

Constantly shifting trends and the rise of fast fashion have taken a serious toll on the environment. So can a new generation of smaller, eco-friendly producers push the big brands to change?

Global textile production is notoriously emissions-intensive. It contributes more to climate change than all international flights and maritime shipping combined. And fashion, with its emphasis on new trends and seasons, is wasteful by design.

However, the environmental damage wrought by the industry has been supercharged in our era of fast fashion, with its rapidly changing new collections, low prices and overloaded wardrobes – all of which have encouraged consumers to adopt a more throwaway attitude to clothing.

In February, a UK parliamentary committee lambasted the fashion industry for the environmental and social impact of this high-velocity business model. “‘Fast fashion’ means we over consume and underuse clothes,” said Mary Creagh, chair of the Commons Select Environmental Audit Committee. “As a result, we get rid of over a million tonnes of clothes [in the UK], with £140m worth going to landfill, every year.”

The MPs recommended a range of measures, including tax incentives for businesses that promote the reuse, recycling and repairing of garments and materials.

Calls such as these to curb the fast fashion malaise present an opportunity for innovative and disruptive startups. Unlike many larger, established brands that would need to radically recalibrate their business strategies and bottom lines, new entrants and smaller companies are in a unique position to deliberately build their businesses around more sustainable supply chains and less wasteful, lower-volume revenue models.

“[Being small] allows us to live in our own little niche and focus our energy on building a brand and community rather than spending brain power on trying to keep up or compete with others,” says Quang Dinh, co-founder of Girlfriend Collective, a Seattle-based activewear brand that uses materials made from used water bottles and fishing nets. “There’s no getting around the fact that it’s more difficult and time-consuming to make things in a sustainable way. If other brands want to change what they’re doing and become more sustainable, they’re going to have to make a big commitment and stick to it. There are no shortcuts.”

Dinh and his wife and co-founder, Ellie Dinh, launched the business in 2016. He recalls how they were spurred to action by the epidemic of single-use plastic. “In our research, we discovered it was possible to make an amazing, soft, strong polyester from old bottles, and found great partners to help us do it.”

As well as using sustainable materials, Girlfriend Collective is also built around a fully transparent supply chain that is exhaustively documented on its website – from details of a  government-certified processing centre in Taiwan to its factory in Vietnam that is situated just 30 metres away from a wastewater treatment plant. It also details what happens to its “dye mud”, formed when run-off dye seeps into nearby soil. Whereas many textile factories dump the tainted mud in landfill, Girlfriend Collective sends it to a special pavement facility to be transformed into paving stones.

Other sustainable fashion brands have demonstrated that it is possible to thrive by being more eco-friendly by design. Patagonia, which was founded by environmentalist Yvon Chouinard back in 1973, was among the pioneers of sustainable fashion and has grown into one of the leading players in the outdoor gear market. In the early 1990s, brands such as People Tree and Wales-based Howies championed fairtrade and organic cotton, which is considerably easier on the environment than standard cotton. More recently, US brands such as Everlane and Reformation have led the way in transparent supply chains.

“Mainstream brands are playing a tiny, tiny part in this,” says Safia Minney, the founder of People Tree. “They’re giving a nod to sustainability. That’s to be encouraged. But real innovation is coming from the pioneering brands.”

Another early innovator in this space is the British designer Christopher Raeburn. After graduating from the Royal College of Art, Raeburn entered a collection made from surplus military parachutes into a competition, which was subsequently bought by designer boutique Browns in 2008. Raeburn’s eponymous label now focuses on streetwear made from repurposed and recycled materials. He agrees that meaningful change requires radical rethinking of fashion’s business model.

“For us, success is not about RÆBURN products being in every store or on every street corner, quite the opposite,” he says. "We want to look at growth in a much more modern way than just incremental numbers. During our early stages, people would look at our business plans and tell me that I wasn’t ambitious enough. I think I was, but it’s always been about healthy growth. It’s about good products, what retail means to us, community and craft.”

Interestingly, Raeburn was appointed global creative director at Timberland in 2018 so that he could share his sustainable values and vision with the much bigger brand.

“Ultimately, it’s about everyone working together to make a difference on a global scale. It’s about pushing boundaries and putting purposeful design at the forefront of everything we do,” says Raeburn. “We need government legislation and individual action working in tandem. From our side, we’ll be thinking twice as a business before we act and challenge the industry at large to do the same.”

Prof Dilys Williams, director of the Centre for Sustainable Fashion at London College of Fashion, says a “new value proposition” needs to be developed that isn’t reliant on profit alone, but instead “considers social foundations and planetary boundaries”.

“All brands need to change,” she says. “That is what fashion is about – making change that is relevant to the world.”

Of course, consumers also have a key role to play in this change – by voting with their wallets and calling out those brands whose choice of raw materials and working practices are no longer acceptable.

Caryn Franklin, a fashion commentator, academic and journalist, suggests consumers of fashion should start by being much more conscious of the conditions under which their clothes are produced. “We [need to develop] a culture where we consider the full cycle of a garment,” she says. “We need to make an emotional connection, as the wearer, to the makers of our clothes. Learn how to darn. Disregard the influence of trends and recognise them for what they are: a marketing ploy.”