Plastic-free clothing: can vegan fashion really be both cruelty-free and sustainable?

Can we find vegan, plastic-free clothing? Sascha Camilli looks at how eco-friendly vegan fashion really is, and whether cruelty-free clothing is in fact just a marketing term for petroleum-based synthetics

Years ago, ‘vegan fashion’ was an oxymoron. Veganism was an obscure, hippie-ish niche far from the glitz and glamour world of fashion.

But as sustainability discourse took up more space in the world of style, vegan fashion stepped into the spotlight and became a trendy buzzword.

Major designers started offering vegan styles, vegan fashion events took up space on the international Fashion Week calendar, and celebs championed cruelty-free designs on the red carpet.

All of a sudden, animal-free was in.

Of course, this terrified the industries that had built their business on animal suffering.

As the truth behind the wool and leather industries were revealed, their businesses was diminishing.

Virtually every designer on the Fashion Week schedules had publicly renounced fur, and many were moving away from exotic skins too.

To save themselves, these industries disseminated a narrative that really took hold: that vegan fashion is bad for the environment.

That it’s a con, making consumers pay a premium for low-quality materials.

That vegan fashion is really nothing but plastic.

Does vegan fashion cause plastic pollution?

To understand plastic pollution in fashion, we need to look beyond veganism.

Plastic pollution is pervasive in our society and our clothes are definitely part of the problem.

It is estimated that 60 per cent of all textiles in the world are made from synthetics like polyester (one of the most common materials in fashion), acrylic and nylon.

What’s the issue with those fabrics? Well, not only is their production highly toxic and polluting, they also don’t biodegrade, meaning they will leach damaging substances into the environment for many years after that top first appears in your favourite high-street shop window.

Another big issue with synthetics is that they release microplastics into the waterways when washed.

Microplastics contaminate the waters and harm marine life.

Clothing is responsible for around 30 per cent of all plastic pollution in the oceans.

Do only animal-free textiles contain plastics?

It’s clear that plastic in our clothes is a problem, but is vegan fashion a worse offender than non-vegan materials?

Believe it or not, the answer is not always.

First of all, let’s remember that fabrics like polyester aren’t exclusively worn by vegans.

Vegans, unfortunately, still make up only a tiny fraction of the population, and the extensive plastic pollution that fashion entails hardly derives from them alone.

Polyester is extremely common in fashion, and it’s worn by most of us. The same goes for other plastic-based materials such as acrylic or nylon.

While vegan fashion certainly is rooted in an era where faux leather accessories and clothing were made from materials like PVC and polyurethane, sustainable material innovation is working to address that concern.

Materials like the new generation of plant-based leathers – crafted from pineapples, mushrooms, apples, corn, cactus or wine grapes – are made with bio-based content that drastically slashes their plastic content.

What’s that, I hear you say – ‘plant leathers aren’t plastic-free.’ Indeed they are not.

They are a big improvement from PU or PVC pleather, but even so, they are not 100 per cent plastic-free.

Leathers made from fruit and plants still contain plastic, which many of the inventors are working to eliminate.

Let’s remember that animal leather isn’t plastic-free, either.

Like any natural fibre, leather starts to degrade as soon as it’s removed from the dead animal.

In order to preserve the material, it is treated with a variety of chemicals, including chromium, aluminium, coal-tar derivatives, and more.

The tanning process in itself is very damaging to the environment, and releases harmful substances into areas surrounding the tannery.

The resulting leather is often also coated in a layer of plastic for longevity.

This will effectively stop leather from biodegrading naturally and negate the biodegradable aspect that the leather industry likes to tout as a big sustainability selling point.

The future of vegan leather

Material innovation has come a long way and plastic-free vegan leather now exists.

US-based company Natural Fiber Welding has developed Mirum, a 100 per cent plant-based leather-like textile made of plant oils and waxes welded together, without any need for petroleum-based ingredients.

The supple and resistant material symbolises a new intersection of veganism and sustainability.

In the UK, researchers at Imperial College London have developed a plastic-free vegan leather which grows from bacteria.

Besides being completely free from plastics and safely biodegradable, the leather alternative can also dye itself using a biological process, eliminating the need for toxic dyes.

The material is being developed in collaboration with designers and has the potential for many fashionable applications. To start, a prototype shoe and wallet have been made with the leather.

Similar plastic-free clothing innovations have been seen at luxury fashion houses such as Balenciaga, who recently won a PETA Fashion Award for working with Gozen, a company that has developed LUNAFORM – a vegan leather that’s free from petroleum-based ingredients.

It is produced by microorganisms through a fermentation process, which doesn’t exactly sound like high fashion, but the results are catwalk-worthy.

Is faux fur just plastic?

Faux fur is also having its own plastic-reducing awakening.

To ward off the fur industry’s insistent claims that vegan fur is nothing but plastic, French faux fur artisans Ecopel have created KOBA, the world’s first bio-based fur, incorporating corn fibres.

Although not fully plastic-free, KOBA is a big step in the plastic-free clothing direction.

It uses 30 per cent less energy and emits 63 per cent fewer greenhouse gases than traditional faux fur, and is so luxurious that sustainable fashion pioneer Stella McCartney has worked with it.

Ecopel’s Communications and Sustainability Manager Arnaud Brunois says: “Even though the plastic issue should not be used to ignore animal suffering linked to the fashion industry, I believe that in the field of faux fur, Ecopel is the first company to have understood the need to reduce or stop the use of synthetics.

“We created our own environmental strategy 5 years ago and launched KOBA ® – a partially bio-based faux fur with Stella McCartney in 2019. It clearly marked the beginning of a new era for the faux fur sector and opened the way for newer ways to create fur.”

Ecopel also have some new innovation up their sleeve, which Arnaud is happy to share:

“Innovation is unstoppable and we are proud to have designed two new options that we think can be game changers: our first-ever 100 per cent bio-based teddy and a fur textile made entirely with plants.

“It is a wholly new approach to fur, with a very organic feel and touch, vegan and free of plastic”

How to find plastic-free clothing

Avoiding plastic when choosing clothing means looking to nature: materials such as organic cotton (buy organic when you can, as cotton comes with its own set of environmental issues), hemp blends, and Tencel (wood-pulp cellulose material, also known as Lyocell) are the best bets to keep plastic at bay.

But, there is no denying that plastic is pervasive in our society, and as it doesn’t degrade, it won’t go away anytime soon.

For this reason, clothing made from recycled fibres is the lesser of two evils, while recycling won’t solve fashion’s pollution problems on its own, it is a good compromise.

Avoid driving up demand for new plastic clothing by shopping second hand as much as you can, and mending clothing that’s been damaged – whether you want to keep wearing it, or to sell or donate it – rather than throwing it away.

Plastic-free vegan textiles to look out for

• Organic cotton: choose organic cotton to minimise water use and to avoid toxic pesticides.
• Hemp: grows without any use of pesticides or chemical fertilisers.
• Tencel: made from wood-pulp cellulose, water and chemicals used in production are reused.
• Mirum: plastic-free vegan leather made from plant oils and waxes.
• Lunaform: made by microorganisms with a fermentation process.
• Ramie: a silk replacement that is made from a nettle plant.

The future of vegan plastic-free clothing

The ultimate in plastic-free vegan fashion is yet to come.

While lab-grown burgers first entered the scene over a decade ago, leather grown in a laboratory is still in its infancy.

Once this game-changer becomes commercially available, it will truly revolutionise the industry.

Fur is also being grown in laboratories, with brands like Fendi and Louis Vuitton showing interest in the plastic-free developments.

While there is no denying the devastating impact that plastic has on the planet, it’s crucial to keep in mind that animal agriculture’s environmental effects have been found to be even more detrimental on several occasions.

Choosing vegan, and plastic-free when we can, has the potential to truly make a change.

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Featured photo © deniskomarov via Adobe Stock