The Best Sustainable, Affordable Fashion Brands: How They Do It
Ethical and affordable fashion’s making waves in 2021.
And we’re not talking greenwashed high street retailers, with one line that uses a few recyclable materials. No – there are a handful of affordable fashion brands prioritizing giving back to people and the planet.
Today, we’re showing how some of the best fashion brands create clothing that’s affordable and ethical.
The Sak
Price Range: $25-180
Fashion: Known as the bag of the 90s, The Sak never went out of style. Think artisanal, hand-crocheted string, paired with strong vegan materials.
The Sak’s collections include Back to Bali, hand-crocheted by Balinese artists, as well as EcoTwill and ReSak, made from recycled materials.
Sustainability: How does The Sak do it? They’re constantly on the search for new opportunities to make their supply chain more ethical and sustainable. For example, the Limited Edition ReSak Hobo Bags are crocheted using Oceanworks-certified yarn, sourced from ocean-recycled fishing nets.
Cariuma
Price Range: $75-120
Fashion: Cariuma pioneers the sustainable philosophy: fashion, affordability and sustainability go hand-in-hand. They make sustainable sneakers that are durable and timeless too, because they believe buying less is the only true solution to fast fashion.
Sustainability: Completely vegan, and made from bamboo and recycled plastics, these affordable sneakers come in a range of cool colors. And with every purchase, Cariuma plants a pair of trees in the Brazilian rainforest to aid the preservation of these natural habitats.
prAna
Price Range: $15-250
Fashion: Our top pick? The Zion Family Collection, durable clothing made from recycled nylon, built to last for outdoor adventuring.
Sustainability: prAna’s the opposite of greenwashed sustainability. Their ethical practices run right through their supply chain, from the fields they grow organic cotton and hemp in, to a supply chain overhaul to reduce carbon footprint. prAna is big on transparency too: they make their supply chains and operations public, so you can vet their sustainability creds.
Pact
Price Range: $15-110
Fashion: We love the Go-To Leggings, which are actually not 100% organic cotton. They also include elastane to give them that awesome stretch – plus, like everything at pact, they’re made completely child-labor-free and sweatshop-free.
Sustainability: Thought organic cotton always came with a ridiculous price tag? pact’s challenging the status quo. Their organic cotton uses up to 95% less water than conventional cotton during the wash phase, but their 100% organic cotton tees start at just $25.
pact has got the creds too, with Global Organic Textile Standards (GOTS) Certification and Fair Trade Certification.
Frank and Oak
Price Range: $5-150
Fashion: Like the handful of other great ethical and sustainable clothing brands, Frank and Oak does the basics super well. But Frank and Oak is definitely more experimental than the average sustainable brand, adding gorgeous pieces like this dark grey plant-print dress, made 100% from organic cotton, grown and harvested with sustainable methods.
Sustainability: Beneficial to you and to the planet, Frank and Oak packs in an impressive number of cutting-edge clothing technologies within a budget price range. Think Dip-Less dyed denim that saves big on energy and hydro-less processes that cut up to 95% of water.
Frank and Oak’s ethical practices are really in the details: from recycled zipper tape that’s specially processed so it can be recycled again, to working with Canadian artisans to build stores out of recycled materials.
How to Save on Sustainable Fashion
These sustainable fashion brands have got to the heart of what the industry, and the planet, needs. In order for ethical fashion to go mainstream, it needs to be within a reasonable price range.
We built Ruby, an app that connects you to thousands of different stores and allows you to discover – and then stack – every single way to save. We’re proud to support sustainable, ethical fashion brands on Ruby, helping you to make voting with your dollar that much easier.