A Beginner’s Guide to Sustainable Vegan Fashion
Vegan Happy Clothing is a wonderful fashion brand, founded by a woman who rescues barnyard animals and sells casual clothing items with vegan messages, with profits helping to fund animal welfare. This Worn with Love organic cotton tee is sold in many colours.
For any items containing recycled polyester or elastane, launder in a microfibre filter (or just buy 100% natural fabrics, far simpler!)
As a vegan clothing company, everything is free from wool, silk, leather or fur. The brand also uses water-saving natural dyes for pretty coloured clothes.
Charities supported including those that help pets and barnyard friends, Spanish greyhounds, horses, rabbits and many other creatures, along with a charity that helps dogs that live with homeless people.
There are petite and plus-size ranges. All reviews are 5-stars, and you even get freepost return labels.
You can also find nice accessories like totes for shopping or just walking around town. This Earth Aware mini rucksack is made from organic cotton.
Meet the ‘face of Vegan Happy Clothing!’
Soprano singer Annette Wardell (described as the ‘Kylie of Opera’ by Manchester Evening News) is the face of Vegan Happy Clothing. Born in Yorkshire to British/Cypriot parents, she studied at Royal College of Music and performed with Alfie Boe (to over 280 million viewers, when she sang at an FA Cup Final).
Described by the Daily Telegraph as having ‘one of the most beautiful voices of her generation’, how marvellous that such a glamorous talent is using her own brand to help this one!
Vegan as Folk (fun message clothing and hats!)
Vegan as Folk is a fun affordable online store, with organic cotton casual clothing and hats for men, women and children. Family run, and all items sent in sustainable packaging.
A few items contain recycled polyester or elastane. If bought, launder in a microfibre filter (or just buy the 100% natural fabrics, far simpler!)
Nobody’s keen on a ‘preachy vegan’, but fun message tees get the animal-friendly word out, at the same time as helping the planet by offering organic or recycled cotton clothing. To replace items that you would otherwise buy on the high street.
Some vegan clothing companies with graphic images and skulls etc, don’t exactly give the right impression or inspire others. But this company is fun, and uses peaceful positive and colourful messages.
Someone once asked vegan cookbook author Isa Chandra Moskowitz the best way to convince people to try a plant-based lifestyle. She said the answer was on the end of your fork. There is no need to scare people or upset people, to get a positive message across.
Plant-Faced Clothing (ethically-made streetwear)
Plant-Faced Clothing offers thoughtfully designed organic cotton t-shirts, all made with quality fabrics, and sent in zero-waste packaging.
And each tee has a unique message to promote the plant-based lifestyle. And unlike most streetwear, this is all ethically made, by workers in safe conditions being paid a proper wage.
A few items contain recycled polyester or elastane. If bought, launder in a microfibre filter (or just buy the 100% natural fabrics, far simpler!)
Organic cotton is much better for the planet, as it does not release chemicals into the land or water, which is better for wildlife. Also it stops production of conventional cotton, which uses a huge amount of chemicals, which can also make farmers ill, especially working without protective clothing in hot countries.
Some farmers who buy chemicals commit suicide, as they can’t afford to keep buying them, but their land has turned to ‘junk food cravings’, without organic farming methods. They don’t farm this way by choice, it’s because of the market. So help them along by supporting fairly-paid organic farmers.
Curious Why Vegans Don’t Wear Wool? Find Out!
Although most sheep need shearing to avoid over-heating (and be able to see predators), the conventional wool industry has many issues.
Some sheep are sheared too early (leading to hypothermia) and others suffer ‘mulesling’ (having chunks of skin sliced away to prevent flystrike, without painkillers). And many sheep are killed, when they get older and their wool production slows down).
Visit our clothing brand recommendations, to find plant-based alternatives (you can even find jumpers made from organic cotton and hemp, that are as warm as wool).
If you wear wool, choose companies that don’t kill the sheep, simply shearing the wool: like vegetarian wool or sheepskins.
Pregnant sheep can sometimes roll over onto their backs, and can’t get back upright, and soon die if the farmer is not aware. Some sheep can also fall over, due to wool being waterlogged from rain.
If you see a sheep on its back, just firmly right it back, then stay with it, until rain has drained off, so it won’t happen again. Then inform your local farmer.
A Good Book to Learn More on Vegan Fashion
Vegan Style is the first-ever guide to plant-based fashion, by an industry insider. It goes through all the vegan alternatives to conventional fabrics, and offers a way to create a capsule wardrobe, for both budget and sustainability.
A few items contain recycled polyester or elastane. If bought, launder in a microfiber filter (or just buy the 100% natural fabrics, far simpler!)
The book is a few years old, so the founder has switched from editing a fashion magazine to creating Catwalk Rebel, campaigning for better ethics in the fashion industry.
It recommends watching the film Slay, from a former fur-wearing fashionista who now campaigns for animal welfare.
Basically, anything that doesn’t involve making profit from an animal. There are always grey areas, so it’s usually easier to just avoid it all.
- No fur. This is obvious. The fur industry has horrific welfare records.
- No leather. Not a by-product of the meat industry, most is produced in the Far East, with little or no animal welfare laws. The tanning process is also polluting, and has cancer risks for workers.
- No sheepskin or shearling. Sheepskin the skin of a sheep. Shearling is the skin of a lamb. Shahtoosh (banned) is from a Tibetan antelope. Pashmina is from a Tibetan mountain goat.
- No silk. Conventional silk involves boiling silkworms. Even ‘peace or ahimsa’ silk (that lets silkworms chew their way out of cocoons) can result in them starving on release.
- No feathers or down. Vegans don’t buy jewellery or bedding with feathers (usually from factory-farmed ducks or geese). Real ‘eider downs’ are from fallen feathers (collected in Iceland) but nowhere near enough for the bedlinen industry.
- No Animal jewellery (anything from bones to feathers to pearls, vegans don’t wear it!)
Cupro: The Sustainable Vegan Silk Alternative
Many people are unaware that silk is made by boiling silkworms. Even ‘peace or ahimsa’ silk has been found to cause harm, as although the worms are allowed to chew their way out of cocoons, most end up on the floor, and starve as they are too tired to find food.
This beautiful dress is not made from silk, but waste cotton!
Synthetic alternatives leach microplastics from washing machines. But cupro is made from cotton, so zero waste and biodegradable. And it looks and feels just like silk!
Although Tencel fabric is also touted as a silk alternative, it’s made from closed-wood pulp from flammable eucalyptus trees. Due to concerns over wildfires, Spain and Portugal have already banned new plantations.
Cupron is from ‘linter’, the fuzzy waste left after cotton seeds are processed, that would otherwise be thrown away. It drapes beautifully and feels lovely on skin, to be an ideal silk alternative.
Cupro fabric has been around since 1900. It also holds up well in warm weather as it wicks away moisture better than nylon or polyester. So doesn’t cling to your body on summer days.
People with allergies also find it more comfortable, as it’s free from animal proteins. And unlike silk, this is easy to machine-wash on a gentle cycle, saving you time and dry cleaning costs.
Reasons to Protect Silkworms
Silkworms are not worms, they are the larvae of the silk moth. Living on mulberry leaves, they spin silk from their saliva which hardens into liquid protein, when it comes into contact with air).
They can’t fly. Those used for industry have been genetically altered to not be able to survive in the wild, without human care. Wild silkworms can survive in forests, feeding on trees.
