Eco Fashion World

1. Wool

There are different types of wool such as organic sheep wool and organic alpaca wool. The lather is finer than cashmere, smoother than silk, softer than cotton, stronger than mohair and warmer than goose down and synthetic fabrics. This type of wool

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2. Viscose

Viscose is the most common type of rayon, which is composed of regenerated cellulose. Derived from wood pulp, cotton linters, or other vegetable matter.

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3. Vegetable Fiber

Vegetable fibers are derived from the stem, leaf or seed of various plants. In many cases, the technique is ancient and is now being rediscovered as an ecological alternative to the polluting cotton industry.

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4. Tencel

Tencel is naturally derived from cellulose which is extracted from managed trees. It is one of the softest and most elegant fibers available.

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5. Sisal

A strong bast fiber that originates from the leaves of the Agave plant, which is found in the West Indies, Central America, and Africa.

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6. Sinamay

See pineapple fiber.

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7. Ramie

Ramie is a bast fiber, similar to flax, taken from the stalk of a plant grown in China.

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8. Pineapple Fabric

Pineapple fiber or Piña is a strong white or creamy cobweb-like fiber drawn from tall leaves of an indigenous pineapple plant. The fiber is hand stripped from the leaves in lengths of about 18 inches to 3 feet, sun-bleached, hand knotted and s

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9. PET

PET fabric is made out of recycled plastic bottles blended with cotton. Thanks to technological innovation, the combination of these fibers enables the creation of a knitted fabric that has just the same resistance, durability and fast colors as pr

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10. Peace Silk

See cruelty-free silk.

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11. Nettle or Nessle fabric

Nettle fabric is developed from the Brennessel plant and was very popular in the Middle-Ages when upper-class ladies preferred it over silk. This plant grows in almost all types of soils and it requires very little fertilization because the minerals

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12. Mohair

Mohair usually refers to a silk-like fabric or yarn made from the hair of the Angora goat. Mohair is one of the oldest textile fibers in use and it's both durable and resilient. It's notable for its high luster and sheen and is often used in fiber

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13. Milk Fabric

Milk fiber goes back to World War I, when the Germans, interested in other sources for fabric, discovered milk's potential for cloth. To create the fiber, liquid milk is dried and its proteins extracted. The separated proteins are then dissolved in

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14. Lenpur Fabric

Lenpur is a novel textile fiber from a renewable resource: cellulose carefully selected from the branches of special trees. The remarkable properties of wood provides textile materials made from Lenpur with extraordinary properties. The main differ

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15. Latex

There are different kinds of latex: 100% latex - same as latex.  All natural latex - some manufacturers and retailers use this term to describe the blended latex they use to confuse customers into believing that they are 100% natural

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16. Kapok

Kapok is a short, lightweight, cotton-like, vegetable fiber found in the seed pods of the Bombocaceae tree. Because of its brittle quality, it is generally not spun. However, its buoyancy and moisture resistance makes it ideal for use in cushions,

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17. Jute

Jute is a bast fiber, chiefly from India, used primarily for gunny sacks, bags, cordage, and binding threads in carpets and rugs.

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18. Flax

The plant from which cellulose linen fiber is obtained. Linen is used in apparel, accessories, draperies, upholstery, tablecloths, and towels.

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19. Fish Skin

Fish skin is regarded as industrial waste: after it’s separated from the filet for consumption, it normally gets thrown out. But now the skins are dried, bleached and eventually turned into leather. Fish skin is extremely versatile—it&r

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20. Cruelty-Free Silk or Peace Silk

Conventional silk is made by boiling the intact cocoons and thereby killing the silk worms after which the single silk strand is unwound onto reels. Peace silk allows the silkworm to emerge from their cocoons to live out their full life cycle. The

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21. Banana Fabric

Banana trees were widely used for making fabrics before cotton was affordable and readily available. Now “jusi” banana fabric is made in only a handful of places in Southeast Asia. The raw materials come from the stem that farmers leave

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22. Animal Fiber

Animal fibers are largely those which cover mammals such as sheep, goats and rabbits with well-known examples such as alpaca, merino, wool, fur and mohair. One eco innovation in animal fiber is the production of cruel-free silk or peace silk.

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23. TreeTap

A plant-based leather from the Amazon. Tapped by native Indians directly from the trees, the rubber is purified and spread onto a canvas of organic cotton. Through a hand-crafted process unique in the world, it becomes a fabric used in fashion acce

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24. Waste

Any material - gas, liquid or solid - resulting from the processes of production, extraction of natural resources, implementation and use of products and services.

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25. Vintage

A generic term for new or second hand garments created in the period from the 1920’s to 1975. Most vintage clothing has been previously worn, but a small percentage of pieces have never been worn or sold before. These are often old warehouse st

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26. Vegetarian Animal Free:

Referring to products that have been produced without the use of leather or animal tissue products. Examples are shoes or bags made from “vegetal leather” using Amazonian rubber instead of animal skins.

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27. Vegan

In relation to fashion, we use the word ‘vegan’ for all fashion products that have been produced without the use of any material that comes from animals. This also includes, for example, glues in which products coming from animals can b

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28. Transparency

‘Transparency’ on this website mostly refers to the fashion supply or production chain. Four words connected to the aspect of transparency are certification, communication, connecting and commitment. Transparency points to building sust

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29. Sweatshop

A factory where workers make products in very poor working conditions. This can include exposure to harmful materials, dangerous situations, extreme temperatures, abuse from employers, extended overtime hours, very low wages and child labor. Sweats

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30. Synthetic Dyes

Chemical and synthetic dyes in their origin and properties are dense in toxic substances. They have been obtained from derivatives of petroleum and coal through a highly polluting process. These types of dyes were invented during the Industrial Rev

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31. Sustainable Technology

The use of natural renewable sources (such as the sun, wind or sugar cane) for the generation of energy. It includes systems such as rainwater collection and the re-use of grey waters.

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32. Sustainable Forest Management

This specific type of management ensures the use of resources from forests without the threat of ecological, economical and social loss.

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33. Sustainability

A general strategy that integrates economic, political, environmental and cultural sustainability. Sustainability embraces the collective and the individual in order to reach and maintain the quality of life whether in times of scarcity or periods

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34. Supply Chain

The system of organizations, people, technology, activities, information and resources involved in moving a product or service from supplier to customer. Supply chains within the fashion industry are often characterized by many different stakeholde

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35. Stinging-Nettle Fabric

A recently re-discovered old fabric. Nettles were used to make textile until somewhere in the 19th century and it was mainly due to cotton that nettle cloth was forgotten. Nettle plants are resistant to disease and vermin and therefore don’t

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36. Soy Fabric

An eco-friendly fabric made from a by-product of soybean oil production. It’s a sustainable textile fiber made from renewable and biodegradable resources. It’s part of an effort to move consumers away from petrochemical textile products a

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37. Social Values

Referring to fair trade, which means paying all actors in the supply chain a fair price for their work. It also points to preserving traditional handicraft techniques that have been used to create fashion for many centuries and community development.

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38. Social Inclusion

The creation of opportunities for access to fundamental human rights (work, education, culture, recreation, health) for a marginalized population.

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39. Rio 92

United Nations Conference on Environment and Development organized in June 1992 in Rio de Janeiro. The conference became known as Rio 92; it’s the conference where Agenda 21 was created.

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40. Retro Clothing

Clothing manufactured from 1975 until the end of the 1980s. Clothing produced more recently is usually called modern or contemporary fashion.

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41. Responsible Consumerism

The act of consuming products and services while taking into account the impact and consequences for the environment and the society at large.

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42. Recycling

A process whereby products that are considered junk or waste material are transformed into new products. Amongst others, it’s possible to recycle glass, plastics, paper, organic waste and old metals such as iron, copper and zinc.

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43. Reclaimed

We use this word as an alternative to the word recycled. Often used in relation to fabrics, as new garments can be constructed from the cloth of old garments without going through an industrial transformation process.

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44. Organic Waste

Consists of organic materials that go into the trash, such as leaves and twigs of plants or remains of food. Alternatively, it can be processed into natural fertilizer.

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45. Organic Fibers

Natural fibers grown without any pesticides and other toxic materials.

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46. Organic Cotton

Cotton grown free of toxic chemicals using biologically based and sustainable growing methods (such as crop rotation) rather than with highly synthetic and destructive fertilizers, herbicides, insecticides or pesticides. Certified organic cotton mu

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47. Organic Agriculture

An approach to agriculture that is based on the dynamics of nature. The ecological succession allows soil to restore its fertility because there are no pesticides and mineral fertilizers being used during the process. The criteria for sustainabilit

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48. Organic

A generic term for processes related to life. It can be associated with bodies and organs of a living being or with complex organizations outside the field of biology, where associations of people, rules or laws work and interact with each other as

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49. Non-toxic/Low-Impact

When a product is non-toxic, it has the least amount of toxic run-off into the environment: 5% compared to 50-60% in traditional dye methods for example. On this website, we often use the word non-toxic when talking about dyes, although it can also

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50. Natural Resources

The elements of the natural environment that human beings use to sustain life. Generally, natural resources are classified into two major groups: non-renewable sources (oil, coal and minerals) and renewable resources that are able to self-regenerat

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