What does Ethical Fashion actually mean? What does Sustainable fashion mean? What does Circularity mean and how does it correspond to the fashion industry?

This Glossary answers these questions and gives you an insight into where they come from and how they are implemented into our core business objectives.

The word ethical means “morally right”. The term ethical fashion is related to the designing, producing and consuming clothes, but focuses on the social impact of the fashion industry. It includes a wide range of issues such as living wages, working conditions, health and safety, forced labour and child labour. Garment workers often make clothes under extreme working conditions. Ethical fashion brands are committed to pay their factory workers fairly and treat them with respect, and care.

Sustainable Fashion refers to an eco-friendly approach to designing, producing and consuming clothes that respect the planet by causing the smallest or no harm to the environment and using up less of the natural resources. Sustainable fashion practices also consist of recycling, extending the life of clothes and using recycled and natural materials.

Fast Fashion is derived from “Fast Food” and refers to the approach of designing, creating, and producing clothes quickly and cheaply to fit the seasonal trends directly inspired from the runway. Fast fashion brands are associated with overproduction, cheap prices, waste, poor working conditions, and negative environmental impact.

Biodegradable means a product or item can break down naturally without harming the environment, such as releasing harmful substances into the earth or atmosphere. In the fashion industry, biodegradable often refers to non-synthetic fabrics such as organic cotton, silk, hemp and other fabrics without toxic dyes or harmful chemicals that won't harm the environment at the end of their life.

Fair Trade refers to an organised social movement that promotes greater equity in international trade and sustainable and ethical manufacturing. Fair trade has principles such as fair payment and ensuring good working conditions. This results in many Fair Trade products being more expensive but the extra cost goes back to support the workers and countries of its origin.

Traceability refers to the ability of tracing every product component back through the supply chain until the raw material. Fashion revolution is a not-for-profit global movement with a focus on the need for greater transparency and traceability in the fashion supply chain.

Transparency refers to the practice of publicly sharing information about how, where and by whom a product was made. This does not mean the company is sustainable, but that they have been honest and transparent about what they do within their company.

Recycling refers to the action or process of converting waste into reusable material. For example, some brands have turned plastic bottles into yarn to make fleece sweaters, coats or our Lefrik bags.

Cruelty Free refers to animal welfare and whether any animals were hurt or harmed during the production of the garment. In fashion, it means that the material was derived from animals who were kept humanely, but on beauty products it means the finished product is not tested on animals. If you want a beauty product free of animal byproducts, you need to look for a vegan product.