When: May 1 // Weather: 60ish // Real life: working from home (before the wine, obviously)
I’ve been doing my best to encourage support of sustainable/ethical brands, but I realized recently that that can be its own ethical dilemma, because there’s no Sustainability Czar that can tell me (or you) who’s doing it right and who’s melting the ice caps. Sure, plenty of brands drop the “sustainability” buzzwords, but who’s policing that? (Greta Thunberg? No. She’s probably busy with e-learning.)
But over the weekend I discovered a pretty helpful guide called Good On You. This site has a lot of information, including ratings of a ton of brands. Of course, it’s just one site’s made-up rating system, and some of the ratings are a couple years old, but it seems well-researched to me. Some of the ratings may surprise you, like H&M supposedly being better than Everlane, the latter of which shows up on every freaking sustainable fashion blogger, including yours truly.
I really want to give you guys good information, and I’m finding Good On You to be a helpful tool when combined with my own opinions and instincts. So now when I link to what I’m wearing, I might sometimes put “quasi-sustainable brand” (like I did here for my Modern Citizen sweater and Cuyana pants – both of which I love by the way). That just means I found some competing information, but in the end I decided it was a brand I wanted to support.
You know what else I support? Rosé. All day. Especially during quarantine.
Sweater (quasi-sustainable brand) // Pants (quasi-sustainable brand) // Shoes (sustainable brand) // Sunglasses
I’ve used Good On You in the past, and I think it’s a worthwhile resource though it’s not perfect. For instance, one local Philly outerwear brand, United By Blue, doesn’t have the best rating. I think part of the problem is that they still use wool and leather and other animal products. But I believe they try to source them responsibly, and they do clean waterways — 1 pound for every product sold. So I suppor them because I have faith that they’re doing their best. I’ve also shopped at Pact Clothing which has great comfy basics made with organic cotton. I feel like it’s especially important to support these businesses right now. Thanks for sharing!