The last time you shopped for clothes, what color did you buy? If the answer is green, then you are on the cutting edge when it comes to style. In fact, you may even be part of an important, and growing, trend, that has nothing to do with actual color and everything to do with buying environmentally conscious items to help protect the planet for future generations.
The Trend Of Eco-Friendly Clothing
The concept of organic clothing is nothing new, but things in this arena have come along way in the last year or two. In the past, people had to sacrifice look and style in order to demonstrate that they cared about the environment, or else they had to have unlimited funds to invest in expensive designer clothes that were produced from globally-conscious materials. Today, though, things have changed and you don’t have to be rich or be willing to cloak yourself in a hemp poncho to do your part to help conserve natural resources.
The new take on eco-friendly fashion is widely available in a wide range of materials and price points designed to meet different tastes and budgets. You can find anything from organic or sustainable outdoor gear and casual wear to more professional pieces and formal dress clothes. High-end department stores are featuring their versions of environmentally-responsible clothes, as are several popular discount houses and mall chain stores that make these items more affordable to the general public. There are also numerous online specialty merchants, which cater to people who for personal or political reasons are willing to spend a little bit more to help save the world.
What’s In A Name?
It’s true that whether you shop for environmentally-safe clothing online or in the mall, the green options are generally a little more costly than their counterparts. The demand is currently higher for these items than the supply that exists, keeping the prices inflated. But the benefit is that for the extra expense, shoppers can feel like they are conserving limited resources and making a significant difference. And when you think about the fact that producing one regular cotton T-shirt requires the use of 1/3 of a pound of chemicals that, if absorbed into the ground, may cause cancer according to the experts, then a few extra dollars for a safer alternative seems like an especially good investment.
There is a lot of ambiguity, though, when it comes to defining what eco-friendly clothing actually is. There are also different materials that fall under the broader eco-friendly umbrella. The general concept is that plants such as bamboo, hemp and even seaweed that don’t require pesticides, fertilizers or other chemicals are woven into fabric and then dyed using nontoxic pigments, to make them into clothes. But how the materials, and the clothes, are manufactured, and where, and under what conditions, all play an important part in the equation. All of these differences make it difficult to judge just how much of an impact buying different eco-friendly clothing pieces instead of more traditional items, really makes.