A steadily growing cohort of ‘clean’ fashion brands is challenging the chemistry of our clothing.
“People have detoxed their cleaning products, detoxed their beauty products, detoxed their cookware, and are now turning their attention to their wardrobes,” says Amanda McCourt, co-founder of UK-based brand Not Basics, which she launched in 2024 with her sister Katie after developing allergies to synthetic clothing. “I think that we’ve all been very distracted by the fact that our food is wrapped in plastic. We forget that we are as well.”
Other brands in the clean fashion space include Cottonique, Pact, Mate the Label and Everlane, which in June this year launched its Clean Luxury campaign, promising that the way it tests, designs and makes its clothes is “better for you”. Such brands are generally aligned in their use of organic natural fibers, limited inclusion of synthetics and underlying wellness messaging. They’re working to remove harsh chemicals like PFAS (a group of manmade chemicals also known as “forever chemicals” due to their environmental persistence), petroleum-derived plastics, heavy metals and pesticides from the things we wear.
Clean fashion follows in the footsteps of clean beauty, which had a significant rise in the early 2010s when brands such as Beautycounter began formulating products free from chemicals like parabens and formaldehyde — widely linked to health issues spanning from hormone disruption to cancer. But like clean beauty, clean fashion is an unregulated term that evades a precise definition, opening up concerns over greenwashing and false claims in an industry where they’re already rife.
What does ‘clean’ really mean?
Much like ‘sustainable’, ‘clean’ doesn’t have a singular, sector-specific definition. To some brands, such as Cottonique, it means forgoing synthetics altogether. For others, such as Everlane, it means implementing an extensive restricted substances list (RSL) within its supply chain to ensure safe chemical inputs and outputs from the farm level to the factory and the final wear. But testing chemical safety isn’t an easy or straightforward process.
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