Buying vintage and bespoke is great, but when you do need to buy off the rack, start with a few UK brands making sustainable and affordable garments
Last year, in the interest of sustainable fashion, I joined a pledge only to buy five new pieces of clothing. Despite thinking of myself as someone who doesn’t really shop, I found the restriction a real chore. Unless you’re buying vintage or spending a fortune, the dilemma of how to engage in the fun and newness of fashion without contributing to its environmental footprint is, it turns out, nearly universal: data in a new report reveals 74% of people want to dress more sustainably but most don’t know how to go about it.
The report – released by multi-brand retailer Zalando – found that 39% of consumers find sustainable garments too expensive and 27% say they are hard to identify. It’s little wonder sustainable fashion remains plagued by vague claims, convoluted supply chains and a call-out culture that’s left brands reluctant to promote initiatives to customers on the lookout for greenwashing.
“People are more engaged than they’re often given credit for,” says Pascal Brun, Zalando’s vice-president of sustainability and D&I. Almost two decades after sustainable fashion entered mainstream discourse, most people have some awareness of the industry’s environmental impact – carbon emissions, pollution of waterways, deforestation, microplastics, waste. They probably also know these ill effects are exacerbated by the sheer volume of product being made every year (somewhere between 80 and 150bn garments) and the increasing proportion derived from fossil-fuel based fabrics (polyester accounted for 57% of all fibres in 2024).
The rising popularity of ultra-cheap, ultra-fast fashion brands such as Shein and Temu (the targets of French legislation passed last week) brings the dilemma into stark focus. Yet this new data reveals, despite everyone’s best intentions, it’s not clear where and how to shop with a reduced impact. So, how does one buy reasonably priced, sustainable clothes?
