5 Affordable Fashion Brands that are Sustainable and Look Really Expensive

These are the most affordable brands that look super expensive

It’s a great time for fashionistas right now as we are currently living in the ‘quiet luxury’ era and brands are focusing more on sustainability. According to the fashion website, Womens Women Daily (WWD) the term ‘Quit Luxury’ is a fashion subculture. “Quiet luxury” refers to understated clothing made with very high-quality materials. So say bye-bye to big brash logos and hello to elevated basics.

But thankfully that doesn’t mean your style has to be expensive. Affordable fashion brands are your best friend when it comes to this classic ‘Quiet luxury’ style. If you’re wondering how to find affordable fashion? Then check out our top five favourite affordable fashion brands that are thinking of the environment and still look really expensive.

Read – 4 Ways to Easily Shop for Sustainable Clothing

Affordable Fashion brands

H&M

H&M are committed to leading the change to a better fashion future, which starts with improving sustainability performance in their own value chain and demonstrating the resilience of a sustainable business. The brand is committed to ensuring that the natural raw materials used in its products are produced in a way that contributes to sustainable development, respects human rights, preserves natural resources, and helps maintain biodiversity.

They are changing the way they design their products and introducing new circular business models to extend the lifetime of their products and materials, They also introduced a new goal to double their sales by 2030 while halving their carbon footprint by reducing their dependency on virgin resources and finding new ways to generate growth.

All cotton sourced for H&M Group comes from more sustainable sources and last year they tripled the share of recycled materials to 17.9% and increased the share of more sustainably sourced materials to 62.1%.

By moving towards becoming more circular and working towards their goal to only source recycled or more sustainably sourced materials, they are reducing their reliance on natural resources and raw materials and their chemical and water goals are helping to protect and restore habitats and species. Their target is to reduce emissions across their value chain by 56% by 2030 and reach net zero by 2040.

Read – Sustainable Fashion: Everything You Need to Know

Affordable sustainable fashion brands

ARKET

ARKET was founded with the mission to simplify good choices and influence positive change in the fashion industry. Their design philosophy is based on the Nordic tradition of simplicity, function and everyday beauty, and by offering under one roof a broad collection of well-considered fashion, food, and functional home items, they want to inspire people to live a more sustainable lifestyle. In 2021, a total of 90% of their ready-to-wear, accessories and homeware textiles were made using sustainably sourced materials.

They reached their goal of working exclusively with preferred cotton, which means either organic or recycled cotton or cotton sourced through the Better Cotton Initiative (BCI). In addition to the broad palette of materials used in their collections, they continuously work to improve and develop new solutions for their packaging and labelling and aim to implement a circular approach to all their non-commercial goods. 

Furthermore, to facilitate a circular loop of materials, they offer a take-back system in their stores for all their product packaging, as well as their Recycle with ARKET program for collecting unwanted garments, shoes and home textiles, and have committed to using 100% more sustainably sourced materials by 2030 and becoming fully climate-positive by 2040.

Everlane

Everlane doesn’t do trends. Their aim is for you to wear timeless pieces for years, even decades, to come. That’s why they source the finest materials and factories for classic products including cashmere sweaters, Italian shoes, and Peruvian Pima tees.

When it comes to full transparency Everlane publishes everything that it costs them to make each and every one of their products. There are some factors that they can’t neatly account for – like design, fittings, wear testing, and rent on office and retail space – but they believe you deserve to know what goes into making the products you love.

Things like Materials, Hardware, Labor, Duties and Transport. They call this Radically transparent and that’s what makes us love them even more.

Read – Fast Vs Slow Fashion

&Other Stories

With creativity and inspiration at the heart, & Other Stories approaches every part of the brand with a sustainable mindset. Their ambition is to create a lovable circular fashion of premium quality that lasts beyond the season.

Their summer capsule collection made such an approach toward a circular future of fashion, as each piece is made using sustainably sourced materials and is designed to be styled and re-styled in seemingly endless ways.

They have a strong focus on sourcing high-quality materials and always strive for better alternatives that have less impact on the environment, using third-party life cycle assessment (LCA) data to evaluate the environmental impact of their sustainably sourced and recycled materials.

Most of their sustainably sourced materials are also verified and certified by a third party, such as RWS or GCS. One of their most important goals is to use 100% sustainably sourced or recycled materials by 2030.

Levi’s

The leading denim brand that you know and adore, Levi’s is committed to sustainable denim wear. The brand creates products which last a lifetime, their most popular item the 501 Jeans was first created over 150 years ago. Levi’s plans to reduce its water usage by 80% using the Water<Less technique, as well as reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 25%.

Through sustainably sourcing cotton for its denim, the brand has saved over 4.2 billion litres of water since 2011. The brand also has its Tailor Shop for redesigns and repairs, and nowadays you can purchase a second-hand pair of Levi’s anywhere, knowing that the style and quality are timeless. Sustainability is at the heart of Levi’s and it definitely shows!