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Are you interested in making a positive change for the environment and communities across the world just through the places you shop at? And would you be looking for a new skirt for that night out or summer’s day?
Iโm guessing at least one of those is a yes, if so weโve got you covered! These 10 brands below can provide you with a wide range of options from affordable skirts for sports to planet-positive elegant cocktail skirts.
Eco-friendly, sustainable, and organic are just a few of the many ethical quotas these brands meet, so if youโre interested in making a positive impact please read on.ย
What does โsustainably madeโ mean?
To take it back to basics sustainability in fashion has to do with avoiding the depletion and damage of the natural environment and its resources and ensuring the future security of said resources by minimizing the fashion industry’s contribution to ecological imbalance.
Social sustainability involves supporting communities and peoples’ livelihoods and ensuring future populations’ livelihoods wonโt be threatened by ecological damage through production, manufacturing, or end-of-cycle waste.
Many brands, including the ones weโll dig a bit deeper into, also adopt sustainable practices by using sustainable fabrics in the majority of everything they make.
What does โethically madeโ mean?
Ethically made clothing focuses more on social sustainability, prioritizing workersโ conditions, rights, pay, and so on. Brands ensure social responsibility by addressing all aspects of the garmentsโ production and manufacturing process where people are involved.
The brands we cover here are a stark contrast to fast fashion names like Shein, Temu, and PrettyLittleThing who have been notorious for underpaying workers, forcing them to work in harmful environments and extremely long hours, all for consumers to have a new, cheap, poorly quality top to be worn once and thrown away.ย
When we rate brands here at Eco Stylist you can have faith in the fact that the garments you are purchasing have been ethically made, with workers/laborers receiving living wages working in safe working conditions.ย
It is important to acknowledge that a key part of sustainable fashion is reducing consumption altogether.ย But of course when we need to buy somethingโbuy it sustainable!
If you are in your sustainable fashion journey and are looking to build more of a capsule wardrobe or even looking for a gift for a friend or family member to encourage them to shop more sustainably and ethically for skirts, these brands are a great place to start.
Our 10 Favorite Certified Brands for Sustainable Skirts
1) Pact
Pact, well known as โearth’s favorite clothingโ, is a Fair Trade Certified casual affordable clothing company. They specialize in making clothing from organic cotton, which is great for your comfort but also for the environment by reducing the use of harmful chemicals and extreme levels of water consumption to make cotton.
Pactโs Fair Trade certifications provide you, the consumer, with the reassurance of sustainable consumption. They are committed to providing living wages for their workers and doing so in safe working environments, alongside offering bonuses and clothing donation programs, simultaneously reducing the levels of clothing waste sent to landfill.
Shopping at Pact offers you an elegant, organic style with soft tones that will pair well with a wide range of colors. Their skirt collection consists of midi and maxi skirts both floral and monotone that come in a range of flattering shapes.
2) Girlfriend Collective
Girlfriend Collective provides more causal clothing designs, catering for comfort but also providing activewear for various sporting activities.
Their skirt collection consists of skorts, both fashionable and sporty, a flattering wrap-around skort, and a streetwear-style midi skirt, all in a range of colors. Girlfriend Collective is also very size accessible, with size availability ranging from XXS-6XL, thereโs something for everyone here.
In terms of ethical supply, Girlfriend Collective openly broadcasts their suppliers enabling consumers to identify their ethical practices right down to their manufacturing factory in Vietnam and their material production facility, using recycled plastic for fabric production.
This transparency also provides information on workers’ safety under their fair treatment and pay policy which is available to the public.
If youโre looking for a new skort for your next tennis game or a brunch outing try Girlfriend. P.S. You also might be in for a hefty discount on your first purchase!
3) KNOWN SUPPLY
Known Supply takes transparency one step further by giving workers credit for each garment made. You can see this on your label, with the makerโs signature on it and a QR code to โmeet the makerโ. In this way the worker gets credit for the garments they produce, you have a more personal experience and connection to your clothing, and Known Supply massively performs on their ethical transparency, through the publishing of factory suppliers and the condition of facilities.
At first glance, Known Supply seems dominated by tees and sweatshirts with simple yet quality designs, however, they have a substantial collection of clothing on offer including skirts. These include mini, midi, and maxi from affordable prices starting from just $20. Similar to Girlfriend Collective, Known Supply prides itself on being size-inclusive offering a range of styles in sizes XS-4XL, again there is something for everyone here.
4) Tentree
Tentree specializes in all things eco-friendly, whether making their clothes from organic cotton, hemp, recycled polyester, or TENCEL. The environment is a top priority here, as it says in the name, Tentree makes a promise to plant 10 trees for every item of clothing purchased. In doing so youโre not only gaining a new piece of clothing, but youโre also helping encourage afforestation which in turn improves the world’s ability to store carbon from the atmosphere and reduce levels of global warming.
On a more personal level as a Tentree customer, you can send your clothes back once they have reached the end of their lifecycle in your hands to Tentrees to then be recycled and made into new clothing or to be resold as second hand. Their partnering with SuperCircle is a great initiative to increase the lifespan of clothing reducing the demand for constant mass-scale production and manufacturing of new garments in environmentally damaging processes, and it’s a super easy and simple way to play your part.
Tentree skirts are all made with either hemp or cotton, no animal products, so are very eco-friendly and feel great to wear too. While Tentree doesnโt host an overwhelming collection of skirts, they hit the mark by providing something for every occasion whether that be sporty, casual, or for more of a dress-up occasion.
All of their skirts are super comfortable, made from stretchable fabrics with adjustable waistbands so you won’t have to feel uncomfortable throughout your day. Plus as a little bonus, they often have a 10% discount when you sign up for their newsletter, providing you with lots of useful sustainable information and keeping you informed on their range of garments.
5) Nudie Jeans
Nudie Jeans is a hip, trendy, and sustainable business providing yes, as you guessed, jeans for men and women. They donโt stop here though, Nudie also provides other denimwear, including shorts, jackets and again you guessed it, skirts.
They keep their collections relatively small, allowing them to focus on the sustainability of each item. High-quality organic denim is of top priority here ensuring that their denim lasts a lifetime, and if not Nudie Jeans offers free repair services.
To provide full sustainability disclosure Nudie Jeans publishes their annual CO2 emissions and water usage, which is a key step to encourage them to minimize both environmentally damaging aspects of the fashion industry, especially with the water-intensive nature of denim manufacturing, but also gives us as consumers a better understanding of the impact our clothes have on the environment.
Nudie Jeans 100% organic cotton skirts have a softened feel to their denim, providing extra comfort. Their skirts also have individual product transparency details, explaining the climate impacts and water consumption for that item, in addition to the location and factory of each step that goes into producing their skirts.
6) Whimsy and Row
Whimsy and Row is an eco-conscious, sustainable brand producing elegant skirts.
Their use of locally sourced fabrics for all clothing demonstrates their commitment to sustainability, and again reduces the environmental transport impact of sourcing materials from far and wide.
In terms of sustainability, they use wait lists as a way of reducing waste from overproduction, and customers are also able to resell their items via Whimsy and Row if no longer worn, giving new customers the option to buy second-hand, again reducing the demand and risk of overproduction.
If youโre looking for sleek and sophisticated skirts, with flattering lengths, they are the company for it. Whimsy and Row also design a skirt and top matching set allowing you to interchange outfits in many ways with just a few garments.
7) Edwin
Edwin, known for their premium denim, is a brand based in Japan, that produces high-quality Japanese denim. With regard to materials, denim is known to demand high levels of water for production, reducing water sources and, with denim production contributing a whopping 20% towards global wastewater production. Edwin combats this using innovation to reduce water use, and by producing high quality, durable denim that lasts, reducing the need to rebuy denim items as frequently and thus reducing demand for environmentally degrading processes.
While jeans are Edwinโs primary focus, they also manufacture shorts and skirts, with both mini and maxi skirts, all at a reasonable price so are the perfect place to go when looking for denim skirts.
Ps. If any of your Edwin garments get damaged they offer a free repairs for life scheme so you can be assured that your denim will last you a lifetime.
8) ARMEDANGELS
ARMEDANGELS, based in Germany, provides a wide, but not overwhelming range of skirts, from staple maxi skirts with colors that will pair well with pretty much all items in your wardrobe, to more dressy, summery, and floral styles for more special occasions. Their designs are timeless, perfect for a capsule wardrobe, and reducing the want to buy new skirts each season.
For ARMEDANGELS ethical sustainability is a matter of great importance: by making their production transparent in that youโre able to trace where your garments have been made, enabling you as a consumer to research the factories and working conditions of their suppliers, providing comfort in the sustainability of the skirts you buy.
To confirm this ARMEDANGELS have received a Leader status from the Fair Wear Foundation, confirming their compliance to fair workers’ rights, pay, and condition of work with ongoing assessment of manufacturing conditions.
9) Frankie Collective
Frankie Collective, utilizes premade clothing, as a sustainable alternative to fast fashion, upcycling streetwear to look as good as new. Their process involves reworking different materials, using scraps of different pieces and a creative flare to produce skirts, but also other garments for both women and men.
They own their own factory based in Canada as a way of keeping production local, reducing environmental transport costs, and maintaining staffโs working standards.
Frankie Collective sources their materials from Fabcylce, a company committed to diverting textile waste from landfills to brands like Frankie Collective and others to be reused and given new life. In doing so Frankie Collective extends the lifecycle of garments, reducing harmful environmental consequences of new production and waste all while giving you, the consumers a stylish new piece of streetwear.
The skirts produced by Frankie are unique pieces, some branded reworks like The North Face and others from unbranded deadstock fabric, all with a trendy, streetwear style.
10) Wolven
If you are more into activewear and are looking for a new skirt for tennis or a yoga class, Wolven is a great sustainable alternative to a poor-quality find on Shein.
Their fun, funky designs give you a chance to express a bit of color and style through the way you dress, while also providing you with a comfy, flattering design.
Wolven currently only has one design of activewear skirt in 3 different colors, neutral and patterned, but you couldn’t really ask for much more with activewear, as they are well known for durable garments that are carbon neutral, so why would you even need to look elsewhere?
Their sustainable accreditations verify the work they do toward sustainable fashion including OEKO-TEX Standard 100 and GRS certification, as part of their climate-neutral approach to fashion.
Interested in even more sustainable and ethical brands?
It doesnโt stop here: weโve got a whole range of sustainable brands, including clothing, accessories, and footwear, for you to explore. Check out our Brand Guide to take a look at our range of brands and levels of ethical certification.
Grace is graduating from the University of Sheffield this summer after studying Geography. She loves all things sustainability and fashion, spending her time making and up-cycling clothes. She also has a new found love for writing and a passion to help make positive change in the world.
