We all want to dress well. This site wouldn’t be here if we didn’t, right? The problem is, keeping up with the latest trends often comes at a grave cost. Admittedly, not a financial one – fast fashion is relatively cheap fashion – but therein lies the problem.

Cheap clothes mean cheap production, which often means subpar labor conditions for workers. It also means low-quality, which equates to less time in your rotation before it ultimately ends up in landfill. Researchers have estimated that we’re buying 60% more garments than we were in 2000, but wearing them less. According to consultancy firm McKinsey & Company, 60% of the 100 billion garments produced each year end up in landfill or an incinerator within 12 months. And the global textile industry produces more CO2 in a year than international flights or maritime shipping.

It’s something that brands are slowly beginning to think about. However, with some of the biggest retail chains in the world churning out endless imitations of every fleeting fad, paying not a blind bit of notice to the consequences, it’s clear we still have a long way to go.

We’ll take sustainable style over momentary trends any day, though. It’s better not just for the environment but for your wallet and wardrobe too – and there are those brands for which sustainability is at the very core of what they do. Labels that were either founded with the planet in mind or are doing everything they can to change their production methods and materials to reflect a more environmentally harmonious fashion future. Allow us to introduce you to them.

Patagonia

Built in the image of its founder, bedraggled 79-year-old mountain man and activist Yvon Chouinard, Patagonia is a brand that has had the planet’s best interests at heart since day one. All of the Californian climbing label’s hard-wearing and well-fitting products are made from recycled materials and it has even run advertisements telling consumers not to buy a new Patagonia jacket, but to have an old one repaired instead. It’s also unapologetically political, often weighing in on ecological issues. Most recently, this extended to filing a lawsuit against President Donald Trump for reducing natural land. It doesn’t get much more hardcore than that.