If you are planning a wedding, there are lots of great ways to make your day as eco-friendly as possible without sacrificing on glamor and magic. Sustainable wedding dresses are just one of the greener trends that are turning the wedding industry upside-down, and these beautiful pieces can easily be styled for any type of wedding. Read on to learn about sustainable and ethical wedding dresses and how you can do good while looking stunning!

Why the Conventional Dress Just Doesn’t Cut It Anymore

Wedding dresses — by definition — are not sustainable. An intricate work of art that takes upwards of 20 feet of fabric and at least two weeks to make, a typical wedding dress will only be worn once before sitting at the back of a closet and ultimately heading to the landfill. Add to this the fact that most wedding dresses are made of pesticide-heavy silk and/or synthetic fabrics like polyester that don’t break down easily, and you have an environmental conundrum on your hands!

In recent years, values-based wedding planning is leading more and more couples to avoid fast fashion and choose eco-friendly options for their weddings — from recycled card invitations and plastic-free table settings to intentionally mismatched bridal parties and sustainable wedding dresses.

Ready to discover your perfect, eco-dress? Here are our top suggestions:

Embrace the Charm of Vintage Styles

Styles come and go, but fortunately, time can transform passé into vintage! Your mother’s or grandmother’s highly-prized bridal gown could soon become the perfect ethical wedding dress style when it makes a grand re-entrance on your special day. If the original owner is happy for you to make some changes, you can easily transform the dress with a few small adjustments to make it your own.

If dear granny’s dress isn’t your style, hit the thrift stores and e-stores to browse sustainable wedding dresses in an endless array of silhouettes. For something a little more modern, you could also buy a second-hand dress from a friend or online. Don’t shy away from low-back styles while you’re shopping, either. You can always add a bra directly to your dress so you don’t have to worry about straps showing.

Set the Pace with a Trendy Rental Gown

Another easy and budget-friendly approach to sustainable wedding dresses is to rent a gown and tux for the day itself. The ultimate closed-loop approach, rental gowns reduce your footprint to a fraction of the (environmental) cost and eliminate the question of what to do with the dress after you’re wed.

Make Your Dress from Recycled Fabrics

For the more crafty among us, making your own wedding dress gives you free rein on the design and can save you a lot of money in the process. If you have the time and are so inclined, consider making your dress sustainable by sourcing recycled fabrics that don’t cost the earth. Some excellent fabric sources for ethical wedding dresses include:

• Factory offcuts
• Used wedding dresses that are beyond repair
• White cotton bedsheets and lace curtains from friends or a thrift store
• Excess fabric offered through Freecycle or Craigslist

Depending on what you find, you can create an eye-catching piece that is either all one color (bedsheets!) or multi-tonal. Either way, some basic patterns for sustainable wedding dresses and a few days at the sewing machine could result in a one-of-a-kind dress that you’ll be proud to wear down the aisle.

Go for a Versatile Two-Piece

Another option for sustainable wedding dresses that won’t go to the landfill is a two-piece top and skirt combo that you can wear in the future. Buy a pre-matched set or shop around until you find a combination that works and top it off with a cream-colored shrug or fitted jacket (hello, future job interview outfit!)

Apart from saving on precious resources, investing in a set that you can wear again-and-again lets you keep this special part of your life forever and relive those precious memories time-and-time again.

Invest in a Dress that Does No Harm

A final alternative which we personally love is to shop for sustainable wedding dresses that are made to do good. The perfect solution for a traditional wedding gown that does good for your style and the earth, ethical wedding dresses minimize pollution and are sewn by workers who are paid fairly for their work.

These flowing dress styles available in bamboo and Tencel™ are the ideal replacement for conventional silk and feel wonderfully soft on your skin. Dresses made from organic cotton and linen are the best choice if you want a little more shape and stiffness to your outfit and can be woven to include stunning embellishments such as embroidered details and beading.

Brands Matter

When shopping for sustainable wedding dresses, be sure to do your homework and find the brand that best suits your values. The best brand will be one that has a transparent supply chain, economizes on energy, and uses materials that are pesticide-free and fully biodegradable. You can even keep the good vibes going by donating your dress to a charity you cherish.

Shopping for the Honeymoon and Beyond

Once you’ve thought about how to shop sustainable wedding dresses, don’t forget to prepare for the honeymoon! Eco-chic, ethical lingerie, and comfortable organic sleepwear are essentials for enjoying your first moments as a married couple, and remember a few flattering organic dresses and jackets, too, for strolling around your destination!

Choosing to shop ethical wedding dresses and clothing for your wedding and beyond will not only inspire your guests but will get your family off to a great start with values you can live out in your home. Explore our collection of eco-friendly formal dresses to find your perfect fit, and say “yes” to the dress today!

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Many people considering the relationship between fashion and sustainability for the first time will be immediately discouraged by the higher price tag of an organic tee or eco-friendly winter coat. But what is behind the cost of the clothes you wear and is there really such a thing as cheap sustainable clothing?

Read on to discover the factors behind garment pricing and discover the best way to shop for eco-friendly and ethical women’s and men’s clothing you can feel good about!

The Value of A Garment: Can Sustainable Clothing Be Cheap?

You walk into a boutique retail store at the mall and see the skinny jeans, leggings, and blouses hanging in neatly arranged rows, each with a brand-name tag and detailed wash instructions. Prices range from $50 to $100 with a few items on sale for $25. A few stores down, the discount fashion store also has racks of colorful clothes, but the garments are offered for dirt-cheap prices starting from a mere $5.

If you’re looking for cheap sustainable clothing, you might be wondering if it’s better to choose the first store just because the prices are higher. However, a higher price doesn’t necessarily mean better quality or that the garments are more sustainable. Here are just some of the factors that influence garment pricing in fashion and sustainability.

Fiber Production

Every garment begins with the soil. Whether it’s wool that comes from a grass-loving sheep, cotton that comes from the thirsty Gossypium shrub, linen that comes from the flax plant, or fabrics from bamboo and wood pulp cellulose, they all begin with the ground.

If you’re looking for sustainable clothing, it’s important to keep in mind that organic cotton will cost more to produce because of the costs of organic certification and the higher price of organic fertilizers and non-toxic pesticides. Likewise, organic wool from a free-range sheep that feed on fresh grass and high-quality hay will cost more than conventional wool that may be a product of cruel and unhealthy factory farming.

Spinning and Dyeing

The spinning process for all fabrics is pretty similar. However, the dyeing process has a big effect on the price of the final piece. The cheapest dyes used in fast fashion clothing are made from petrochemicals and can poison local waterways as well as irritate your skin. Sustainable clothing that isn’t as cheap typically uses non-toxic setting treatments and vegetable dyes that cost more to produce but are gentler on your skin and the environment.

Cutting and Sewing

The next stage in the garment manufacture process is cutting and sewing — which is the point at which we find the “sweatshops” so often mentioned in articles about fast fashion. Workers in these garment factories (often located in China, India, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Bangladesh) may be paid less than minimum wage, and the lack of appropriate safety standards means that the lives of the garment workers can be put at risk — even when manufacturing cheap “sustainable” clothing from organic materials. So pairing ethical production or Fair Trade standards with your sustainable materials is imperative.

Retail Salaries

Once garments reach their destination country, their price will be affected by the salaries of retail workers as well as the profit margin of the fashion label. An organic cotton T-shirt may cost $10 to buy wholesale but may be sold for anything from $20 to $50 depending on the profit margin of the company. Where does this profit go? Some of it goes towards the brand’s marketing budget, but the rest is often pocketed by the CEO.

So, when you find a piece of cheap “sustainable” clothing for sale online, the company may have found ways to keep their costs low through sticking to online sales and a low-profit margin. Then again, the brand might be making a profit while keeping those benefits from being passed downstream to the garment workers and cotton farmers who produced the clothes. Prioritizing your budget on smaller fashion brands that focus on sustainability in addition to profit usually results in the best overall value.

Making Fashion and Sustainability More Budget-Friendly

Even though many of us would like to choose eco-fashion for everything from bamboo socks to sustainable jackets, the cost of fairness (and quality) can still be a little out of reach. Here are a few tips to save money on fashion while avoiding the pitfalls of cheap “sustainable” clothing brands that aren’t giving you the full story.

Shop Pieces That You Can Mix and Match

An organic tee by itself is great, but a tee and a pair of organic women’s pants that go with all of your T-shirts are even better. Shopping sustainable clothing on a budget means being smart about style and going for classic cuts in basic colors that you can build into a minimalist capsule wardrobe  and mix-and-match to your heart’s content.

Calculate the Cost by Cost-Per-Wear Rather than the Up-Front Cost

A $10 tee or $2 cami looks great on the rack, but how many wears will it likely last? Even if it has been made under fair conditions, cheap “sustainable” clothing of low quality will end up costing you more if it only lasts for a few months before you have to replace it. In contrast, a $50 garment might look more expensive at the outset but could end up costing you only a few cents per wear if its strength and quality last for years.

Help Your Clothes Last Longer with Proper Garment Care

Our next tip for combining fashion and sustainability is one that we’ve learned the hard way: Follow the care and wash instructions! Fast fashion has got us used to throwing everything in the washing machine and hoping it comes out ok.

After spending a larger amount of cash upfront on authentic (not cheap) sustainable clothing, you’ll want to make sure that you keep your eco-friendly clothes in the best condition for as long as possible. This means respecting directions to wash-by-hand, to wash in cold water only, and to drip dry or dry flat rather than throwing everything into the dryer. Things like woolen coats that are quite expensive at the beginning can last a lot longer if you wash them by hand only when truly necessary.

Shop Genuine Sustainable Clothing for Less at Faerie’s Dance

Our final tip for enjoying cheap sustainable clothing? Shop the most responsible eco-fashion brands when their garments go on sale (like in our great clearance section!) If you know someone who would love some organic and sustainable clothing but might struggle to afford it, you might also consider giving them a Faerie’s Dance gift card that covers everything on our entire site.

Want to know more? Browse the rest of the articles on the Eco-Fashion Philosopher blog and shop our curated fashion and sustainability brands.

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In 2009 we started The Eco-Fashion Philosopher with this very question. By 2019 the terminology has gotten more complex rather than less. Is “eco-fashion” the same as “sustainable fashion”? What about “Ethical Fashion” or “Slow Fashion”? Ten years on, and the need to clarify is more prevalent today than when we started. Let’s take a look at these terms and what they all mean.

“Eco-Fashion” Explained

Eco-fashion describes clothing produced with minimal environmental impact.

When people talk about “eco-fashion”, they are generally referring to the ecological impact that fashion has in the world. At Faerie’s Dance, we look at four factors when determining if a garment meets the “eco-fashion” label:

1. How was the input material grown or made?
2. Are toxic chemicals required for the transformation of the input material into fabric?
3. How much production waste is generated?
4. Which dyes or finishing agents are used in the final garment?

Just to be clear, though, conventional fashion is a dirty business. Exactly how dirty is hard to quantify because fashion touches so many different things such as water chemical pollution, ocean plastic pollution, soil pollution, carbon emissions, petroleum usage, desertification, and on and on. Entire movies have been made about fashion industry pollution. Check out this documentary preview on river pollution for a quick look into some of the main issues with the fashion industry.

RiverBlue – Official Trailer from RiverBlue on Vimeo.

“Ethical Fashion” Unpacked

Ethical Fashion ensures the well-being of the farmers and factory workers.

The creation of fashion is extremely labor intensive. Sewing machines are about as high-tech as things get in the fashion industry, and there are actual people who operate them. The USA once had a booming clothing manufacturing industry. In 1960, 95% of clothing sold in the U.S. was manufactured in New York’s Garment Center. With rising wages in the USA, companies started outsourcing clothing manufacturing.

Initially China was the place to go for cheap labor and minimal regulations. Sweatshop working conditions and child labor became the norm with profit margins skyrocketing for western companies that could still charge a premium. As the world became focused on the plight of the Chinese garment worker, conditions slowly improved and wages started to rise. In some ways, the problem became worse. In the never-ending “race to the bottom” western companies started leaving China to set up garment manufacturing in even poorer areas, with even fewer regulations. Fashion industry workers were increasingly being paid less and less for working longer and longer hours.

In 2013, the Rana Plaza garment building in Bangladesh collapsed killing 1134 people who were making clothing for western companies. The building was not zoned for manufacturing. The upper floors had been built without permits. Worst of all, the workers had been threatened with job lose and pay withholding if they did not come to work even after cracks were spotted in the building. This disaster really shone a spot-light on the plight of the garment workers around the world. The Fashion Revolution was started to counteract this type of worker abuse.

Today, the hashtag #WhoMadeMyClothes is used as a call to action to ensure people in the fashion manufacturing chain are treated with dignity, while Fair Trade standards and certifications ensure they are paid fairly and receive living wages.

“Slow Fashion” Sorted

Slow Fashion emphasizes quality over quantity and lasting appeal over trendiness.

Once fashion production was moved to places with cheap labor, the industry realized that more money could be made by offering lower quality goods, thus reducing prices even further. Moreover, if prices were cheap enough, producers could sell significantly more. The pace of fashion trends picked up significantly in the 1980s and 1990s. Instead of collections coming out seasonally, suddenly new items were being introduced monthly, and then weekly. The strategy was to get fashion from the catwalk to the consumer as fast as possible.

Planned obsolescence became the standard for fashion rather than quality. A shirt no longer had to last season after season. Wearing an item 2-3 times and then tossing it became the norm. The term “fast fashion” was born to describe this new model of production. And the pileup of fashion waste increased exponentially.

After a few decades of rampant “fast fashion” the toll on the environment, the buildup of landfill, and the emotional weight on people owning all this “stuff” became too much. Books like Marie Kondos “The Life Changing Magic of Tyding Up” became international best-sellers as people have become bogged down in a sea of over-consumption. An entire industry of decluttering grew out of the mess. Frustrated consumers and fashion designers are fostering a new movement towards “slow fashion,” in an attempt to find a path back to quality, timelessness and sanity in fashion.

So What is Sustainable Fashion Then?

Sustainable Fashion is the all-encompassing term for fashion that is ecologically sound, ethically produced, and high quality. In other words, both environmentally and socially sustainable as well as well-made and stylish.

We’ve learned a lot since we opened our little online fashion boutique in 2005 with just 70 or so styles. We continue to educate ourselves about fashion, style, ethics and sustainability. Our research into new garments and manufacturers is extensive, and our verification methods have become increasingly sophisticated. Today FaeriesDance.com offers more than 1200 items, each one curated to be sustainable from every point of view.

Imagine if you will, a lacy, sexy, panty, ethically made from sustainable materials, that actually sits high on the waist, covering your belly and making you feel retro gorgeous like Marilyn Monroe. It’s not a fantasy! These elusive high-waisted, organic cotton panties actually exist!

When jeans went low-rise more than a decade ago, so did panties. As a middle-aged woman, wearing undies that accentuated my pooch belly did not make for a happy time for me. But over the last few years, high-rise panties have returned with a vengeance, and gone green! Performers like Ariana Grande (left) and Beyoncé (bottom) have shown off their figures in high rise panties, pushing this retro revival forward.

The eco-friendly version of this movement is primarily being spearheaded in Europe, with companies like Swegmark of Sweden, and Peau-Ethique in France showcasing high-waisted panties made from organic cotton and certified Fair Trade. Peau-Ethique even went one step further, making a retro high-waisted panty with an attached garter belt for extra sass. At the start of this trend, we got a humorous, thoughtful write-up from Girly Girl Army about our high-waisted Infinite Support Brief.

More recently, San Francisco-Paris collaboration brand, Les Lunes, released the simple, but ultra-flattering, Anything But Basic High-waisted panty made from a luxurious bamboo fabric. It has less “support” and tummy control than the Swegmark panties and a bit less pizzazz than the Peau-Ethique options. Instead, it comes in at a lower price and has a silky texture surpassing the other options in comfort and barely-know-its-there wearability.

With so many luxury, ethical, sustainable options available, even the most dedicated low-rise fan might want to grab a retro high-waisted panty for under their favorite skirt or dress. What would you choose: flirty lace, tummy-controlling support, barely-there bamboo or a simple organic cotton basic made right here in Oregon? Whatever you decide, we think the retro indulgence of high-waisted panties is back to stay.

After 8 years of university, Kayla finally completed her M.D. in family medicine and started working at a major hospital in 2012.  She was excited to meet and help patients.  Unfortunately, the US health-care system is focused more on profit than on care, and within a few years, Kayla was burnt out and discouraged.  Often with just 15 minutes scheduled per patient, she was not making the deep connections and serving the community in the way she had hoped to.  She finally realized that to provide the type of care she wanted to give, she would need to start her own non-profit clinic.  She spent another 2 years getting formally trained in Ayurvedic medicine.  Armed with both science-based and holistic health training, she manifested Moon Cycle Medicine, Inc. from a dream into reality in 2017.

Kayla and I met through a women’s networking group, Women Entrepreneurs of Portland (WE PDX) that I cofounded with a realtor friend. She was so excited to find a reliable source for organic cotton intimates!  She and her mom have become regular customers, and I have joined the board of her non-profit.  Unlike Ann from our last customer spotlight story, Kayla has no known allergies or skin rashes.  This led me to ask her at a meeting recently why she wore organic cotton intimates.  She responded, “Wearing organic cotton bras and panties is part of my self-care.  I get peace of mind knowing there are no chemicals on my intimate areas.”

She also told me she occasionally prescribes organic intimates to her patients. “I had a patient who had a severe rash in her private area.  I prescribed her organic cotton underwear along with more conventional creams and antibiotics.  When she came back for her follow-up, she had gotten all the conventional items, but still hadn’t purchased the underwear.  I had to explain, that the organic underwear was the most important prescription I’d given her and sent her off to go find some.”

Kayla appreciates that FaeriesDance.com gives her a specific place to recommend patients to.  “It’s easier for my patients to follow my guidance if I know where to refer them.”

With so much synergy between our respective businesses, Kayla and I will be working on a few joint projects over the spring and summer.  She’s going to be offering a free workshop on breast cancer awareness at our warehouse and we’re also collaborating on a series of bra videos that have been on my to do list for several years.

As I mentioned in my last customer spotlight, my personal motivation for starting Faerie’s Dance was wholly environmental.  Twelve years into the business, I have to agree with Kayla that wearing organic clothing, and intimates in particular, is part of my self-care.  I just hadn’t thought of it in those terms.  Wearing lacy soy panties, or a sensuous pine-tree bra feels luxurious to me.  It’s become part of my everyday armor.

New York, London, Milan, and Paris have the largest Fashion Weeks around the world, but a number of other cities are touting more sustainable fashion weeks.  Green Fashion Week is a non-profit, traveling, sustainable trade show that has already made stops in Los Angeles, Milan and Abu Dhabi with its next showing in Rome and Naples in November.  And Ethical Fashion Show Berlin has become a sustainable Fashion Week staple.  It runs concurrent to the Berlin Fashion Week with a clear focus on sustainability, and partners with Green Showroom, an eco-fashion resource for retailers.  This summer Ethical Fashion Show Berlin has made a permanent move to a larger venue… and Faerie’s Dance will be there to check it out!

A confession… after 12 years working in the fashion industry, I’ve personally never been to a professional fashion show.  In truth, I still get more excited by spreadsheets and graphs than runways and high heels.  YES, I love what I do for the positive impact it has on the world.  (In case you weren’t aware, EcoWatch claims Fast Fashion is the second most polluting industry in the world, second only to oil.)  But rekindling passion for your work is never a bad thing, and one of the things I’m very passionate about is travel.

So this year I’m going to do a little work-related traveling.  Faerie’s Dance will be attending the Ethical Fashion Show Berlin, checking out new lines at the Green Showroom, meeting up with Occidente at Panorama Berlin and finally flying to Sweden to discuss organic cotton bra designs with Swegmark.  Of course, since I’ll already be in Sweden… My partner and I will be taking a much needed vacation together as well, spending a week on a cruise through the Baltics.

We are training assistants to “watch the store,” and will be shipping orders and processing returns and exchanges during the entire trip, from July 1 – 20th.  However, customer service will be limited to e-mail only, with no phone service at all during that period, and we will not be able to offer expedited shipping for those 3 weeks.

Be sure to follow us on Facebook to get updates from the show.  I look forward to celebrating our 12 year business anniversary on July 22, 2107, upon my return.