It’s a lot easier to find beautiful vegan, ethically made and sustainable bags and shoes than it is clothing sometimes.
A vegan leather jacket, fur coat, woolly jumper or silky top is easy to find, but the combo of all three ethical prerequisites requires more of a search.
Having spent far too much of my time googling for perfect (both ethically and aesthetically) clothing, the below list is what I’m calling the vegan crème de la crème of ethical and sustainable alternative clothing – and yes I think that’s more amusing than I probably should.
These aren’t necessarily the most affordable, but examples of the best. So, here goes.
Ksenia Schnaider’s Upcycled Denim Fur
So fur is from a dead animal, the skin is tanned with formaldehyde and all sorts of bad things. Typical synthetic faux fur sheds and those synthetic fibers end up in all sorts of places we don’t want them.
Instead, this is made of frayed 100% cotton denim, specifically, the denim ‘offcuts from the pattern cutting of their denim jeans, blazers and other garments – love. Their other garments are made of both new and upcycled denim.
The designer duo (who are family) are Ukrainian and the pieces are made there with them.
*this is a vegan piece, not all items in the brand’s collection are vegan
Altiir’s Pineapple Leaf Biker Jacket
The Global Fashion Agenda found cow skin leather to be the most environmentally impactful material from cradle to gate. Common synthetic leather is petroleum-based.
This is made of Pinatex’s pineapple leaf fiber, which, like leather, softens and ages well with wear. The lining is plant-based too.
The jacket is crafted in Italy, and the hardware is made in Italy and Switzerland. I’m obsessed with the black hardware to go with a black jacket.
Brave Gentlemen’s Double Breasted Overcoat
Coats like this are almost always made of wool, virgin synthetics or a blend of the two. Wool is a slaughter industry despite common misconception and methane emissions from sheep are overwhelming (accounting for one-third of all of New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions!). Virgin synthetics support big oil and I don’t love that either.
It’s made of EU-Ecolabel certified recycled cotton/polyester diverted from the fashion waste-stream in Brazil. The buttons are made from tagua nuts. It’s made fairly in New York.
This coat is ‘menswear’ in style, but clothing doesn’t have gender and I would totally rock it.
Kordal Studio’s Organic Cotton Knit Sweater
A knit made without animals or synthetics, and instead with organic cotton in its natural colour – no nasty dyes.
Organic cotton production is better for farmworkers, for water supplies, for soil. It’s also biodegradable and won’t leach anything gross back into the earth.
It’s ethically handloom knitted in Peru, and it’s gorgeous.
*this is a vegan piece, not all items in the brand’s collection are vegan
Cass Made’s Silky Bamboo Top
The Global Fashion Agenda found silk to be the second most environmentally impactful material to produce (in their 2017 Pulse of the Fashion Industry Report), and the number one most impactful in terms of global warming emissions. Synthetic alternatives are far less impactful to produce however they won’t biodegrade and would poison the earth should they be put into landfill.
This silky number is made of 90% bamboo modal and 10% cotton. Bamboo is fast-growing, and requires little water and no pesticides to grow.
This garment is ethically made in Jaipur – it even says on the garment label the name/s of who made your clothes!
Ovide’s Cork Jacket
Another great moto jacket, this time made of cork!
Cork can be harvested from trees without harming the tree at all, as it’s just the exterior bark that’s harvested, regrown, harvested, regrown.
