Fashion on Wednesday

Blazers The ultimate spring staple Plus Timeless classics to build a wardrobe on

What’s your first thought when that flash of “I need” desire strikes? If you’re anything like me, then it’s probably, “why yes, I will be requiring some new jeans, but shall I go for the kick flare or a rigid straight leg?” or “But, do I want the dress in polka dots or florals – or maybe both?” Rarely, I admit, has sustainability come into the equation early on, even if there is eventually a gnawing fear that my new thrill signifies another tree felled, river polluted or worker mistreated and underpaid.

But we are reaching what Professor Dilys Williams, director of the Centre for Sustainable Fashion (CSF) at London College of Fashion, calls “a tipping point” in our awareness of not just how much we buy, but the environmental impact of the pieces that we do decide to add to our wardrobes. “Sales are still crazy for lots of mass-produced items yet many of us, particularly young people, are beginning to ask more questions that will eventually lead to changes,” she explains.

There are some sobering statistics which may convince you that a little eco consideration is worthwhile: we now buy 60per cent more than we did 15 years ago, but tend to keep each item only half as long. In 2016, Brits sent 300,000 tons of clothing to landfill. Fashion is the world’s second most polluting industry. Quite simply, we’re consuming at a rate which we can’t keep up without doing untold damage. As part of the V&A’S new exhibition

Fashioned from Nature, which opens this weekend to coincide with the fifth anniversary of the Rana Plaza disaster and explores the relationship between our clothes and the natural world as far back as 1600, the CSF has analysed the human and environmental impact of five items that most of us have in our wardrobes.

It’s not all doom and gloom. So many brands and technologies have emerged with viable alternatives and kinder ways of making the pieces we love to wear that, with some shopping, we can now have great jeans, chic trainers and beautiful dresses with a diminished guilt factor. Williams calls it “design with nature in mind”…

Trainers

The impact:

Trainers have become a ubiquitous, indispensable part of our style armoury, especially now that it’s as acceptable to wear them with an elegant trouser suit for work (thank you, Phoebe Philo) as it is with a sweatshirt and leggings at the weekend. Most are crafted from an inordinate number of components (36 is the average) and go through around 24 processes in eight countries before they make it on to our feet. Those made from leather also contribute to mind-boggling levels of deforestation; between 2000 and 2010, 5.2million hectares of trees were lost thanks to land reclaimed for farming, with many cows raised for their skin alone, not as a by-product of meat, as many assume.

How to do it better:

Veja is the trainer label of the moment but also happens to be one of the most ecoconscious, using wild rubber and rain-forest-friendly leather for its paredback designs. Stella Mccartney eschews leather altogether and

Emma Watson loves Peta-approved Good

Guys sneakers, which are made in Fairtrade conditions with sustainable materials.

Williams is also excited by technological advances that could be coming to shops in the not-too-distant future: Modern Meadow is a company which has created a bio-leather called Zoa, created from collagen grown in a lab. Elsewhere, apples, pineapples, oranges, mushrooms and grapes are also being used to create “plant waste” leather.

Jeans The impact:

Two billion pairs of jeans are made every year, with each pair requiring up to 2,000 gallons of water. It’s little wonder, then, that they are often described as the worst of fashion’s environmental culprits. Satellite images have shown rivers around Style without guilt: improve the conscience of your wardrobe with the likes of Veja trainers, bottom, ELV Denim, left, and Beaumont Organic, below Xintang in China running blue thanks to the synthetic indigo dyes used in its factories while La-based brands have been forced to change their production techniques since huge droughts prompted the area’s mayor to cut water usage by 25 per cent in 2015. Although laser technologies are being developed to create the wear and tear we like to see in brand new jeans, particles from the pumice stones often used to add this distress damage water systems and necessitate several extra rinses.

How to do it better:

“Think of your jeans as a friend for life,” advises Williams. With denim trends (and our body shapes) changing more often than Gigi Hadid’s outfit at Coachella, dedicating yourself long term is a not inconsiderable challenge. Re/done and ELV Denim are pioneering the idea of reworking vintage styles into great modern shapes, bringing us newness in a better way.

Iden is a new British brand, available at Fenwick, which works with organic and recycled cottons. Levi’s and G-star Raw are among the bigger names which have committed to reducing water use while Mud Jeans and Hiut Denim (as worn by Meghan Markle) are some of the best smaller labels to peruse. Excessive washing postpurchase is also an issue. Denim experts advise using products like Mr Black’s Denim Refresh spray or putting jeans in the freezer rather than flinging them in a machine to limit water wastage.

A T-shirt The impact:

It’s the most basic of items and one liable to ignite serious hype (see, Gucci, Balenciaga or Victoria Beckham) but that pristine white tee could harbour bleach and other toxic chemicals which studies have found can be absorbed into our skin while we wear them. Of the 11.7 billion T-shirts (that’s two for every person on the planet) manufactured in 2015, many will have been made in factories where workers are exposed to harmful toxins and made to work in inhumane conditions.

How to do it better:

The T-shirt’s simplicity allows for a plethora of gentler manufacturing processes. Outdoor brand

Patagonia, which has developed a reputation for under-the-radar cool in recent years thanks to its eco credentials, offers us the slouchy “Blythewood” tee in a blend of organic cotton, Lyocell (more of which later) and polyester, which it vows should last you a lifetime, ditto Finisterre’s “Merryn” style. Australian label Bassike has a selection of beautifully cut tops in organic cotton that even the most discerning of T-shirt snobs would find hard to fault – see also, Beaumont Organic and Svilu, a gorgeous American brand which promises “mindfully made effortless staples”.

A viscose dress

The impact:

I have vague memories of GCSE textiles classes in which we learnt that viscose was “good”. Made from (supposedly) renewable wood pulp with a slippery luxury akin to silk, was it the answer to all our sustainable style problems? Although many of us now depend on dresses and other smart pieces made from the stuff, sadly not – 150 million trees are felled each year to make viscose and rayon. Perhaps even worse is the process used to transform it, which uses sodium hydroxide and carbon disulphide and has been linked to cancer and birth defects in areas of production, with devastating consequences for aquatic life, too.

How to do it better:

It’s time to begin searching for “Tencel” and “Lyocell” on your online shopping destination of choice, or scouring care labels for these words. They denote a fabric which is everything we might have hoped for viscose to be – created using pulp from sustainable farms and processed with closed-loop nanotechnology processes that decompose or recover the harmful chemicals. Gap, Uniqlo and Arket, among others, have excellent selections of quietly luxe Lyocell shirts and dresses while ethical style site The Acey has made a lovely pink ruffle dress from endroll Tencel which might have otherwise gone to landfill.

Of course, you could swerve anything pulpy altogether and opt for alternative fabrics. H&M’S latest Conscious collection launches tomorrow and includes a divine silk patterned midi dress, or look to People Ethical chic: The Acey’s pink ruffle dress is made from end-roll Tencel, left, while Stella Mccartney, below, incorporates eco and vegan principles into her designs Tree’s range of stylish but timeless pieces sourced from tiny businesses, like the Kumudini Welfare Trust in Bangladesh, which uses safe dyes, supports traditional crafts and reinvests in the local community.

The nylon bag

The impact:

The CSF chose the nylon bag to demonstrate the “craziness” of the current fashion cycle. “Oil spends hundreds of thousands of years under the ground then it comes up to earth for a tiny amount of time before we put it back into the ground where it will take so long to break down again,” says Williams of our nonsensical relationship with plastics. With 25 per cent of the world’s chemicals used for textile production, it’s an area where a little more conscious consumption could go a long way.

How to do it better:

Whether it’s a throwaway shopping bag or a smarter handbag, Williams emphasises that we should try to “cherish for longer”. A lot of that is to do with considered shopping in the first place – buying something you know you adore and which isn’t a one-season wonder you’ll be bored with in no time. Stella Mccartney has famously done what everyone said was impossible and imbued her eco, vegan bags with a veneer of desire usually reserved for leather goods – the new boxy “Flo” style will look sophisticated for years to come.

Luxury group Kering, which owns Gucci, Saint Laurent and Bottega Veneta, has also introduced metal-free tanning to its leathers, which reduces environmental impact. The most famous nylon bag of them all is Prada’s classic backpack, which has collector’s item status whilst also being quite practical so you’d never deign to throw one away. Williams predicts that the resale market will soon overtake the new clothes market in value thanks to the rise of sites like Vestiaire Collective, Depop and ebay, which enable our preloved items to take on meaningful second or third lives once we’re finished with them.

Fashioned from Nature, supported by The European Confederation of Flax and Hemp and G-star Raw, opens at the V&A on Saturday