Best Sustainable Streetwear Brands & What to Keep In Mind

Are you a big fan of comfy, urban-inspired clothing and making more ethical choices? Double street cred for you!

Since this fashion style comes with additional challenges from an eco-friendly perspective, here are some things you should keep in mind.

To help you get started, I also included some of the best sustainable streetwear brands (I bet you’re going to fall in love with at least one of them!).

Why is it challenging to make streetwear more sustainable?

In a world drowning under piles of fast fashion clothes, designing eco-friendly garments already comes with more challenges and costs. That’s also why YOU make such a difference whenever you support brands that are finding solutions for them.

Sustainable streetwear, however, is particularly tricky for two main reasons:

• Drop culture – For decades, streetwear fashion has been mostly about limited-edition releases to keep up with trends in a cool, exclusive way. Unfortunately, this means relying on fast production cycles and encouraging overconsumption, which is the opposite of sustainable fashion
• Main materials – Several streetwear staples (from hoodies to jogger trousers) require an element of stretchiness. So, they often involve synthetic fabrics, which have an energy-intensive production process and take hundreds of years to decompose. Another popular streetwear fabric is traditional cotton. Sadly, despite being natural, it’s also dreadful for the planet: it’s full of pesticides and toxic chemicals, has high carbon emissions, and requires 2,700 litres of water for a single t-shirt

Best sustainable streetwear practices: what you can look for

The most sustainable streetwear brands have been coming up with creative ways to solve those problems but your mindset matters, too. 

The best thing you can do for the environment and yourself? Move away from chasing streetwear trends and buying new clothes regularly. Instead, focus on your own style, and invest in fewer garments that actually feel “you” and that you can see yourself rewearing for years.

As for picking the most sustainable streetwear brands, look for those relying on practices like:

• Ditching drop culture
• Designing timeless and durable clothes, and marketing them as such
• Smaller-scale production to help reduce the waste generated by fast fashion
• Using recycled polyester, which prolongs the lifespan of the original material (= less waste) and reduces energy consumption by 50% and CO2 emissions by 75% 
• Using recycled or organic cotton instead of conventional cotton, lowering the environmental impact of this material
• Transparent supply chains, unlike fast fashion brands relying on sweatshops (yes, modern slavery and child labour are still a thing)

5 best sustainable streetwear brands for eco-conscious consumers

Now that you know the difference between ethical streetwear brands and those that don’t take the environment into account, let’s help you find the right items for your wardrobe and beliefs.

Here are some of the best sustainable streetwear brands, both stylish and eco-conscious (just like you).

1. Kings of Indigo

The team behind this brand combined their love for American jeans with Japanese fashion and its eye for detail. 

While they specialise in denim garments, they offer a few different types of fashion items too, from tops to accessories.

From an eco-friendly perspective, this sustainable streetwear brand prioritises kind materials like recycled cotton, certified organic cotton, hemp, linen, and rayon fabrics. They also use renewable energy as much as possible. Kudos for that!

2. SSEOM

Inspired by Korean fashion, this sustainable streetwear brand is perfect for iconic t-shirts and tops. 

You’ll also find a smaller but fabulous range of other types of garments and accessories.

As for their environmental footprint, SSEOM prioritises GOTS-certified organic cotton and recycled polyester.

3. NWHR

This ethical streetwear brand (whose name, as you probably guessed, stands for “nowhere’) offers a small but show-stopping range of timeless items, especially jumpers, hoodies, and t-shirts.

It relies on 100% organic cotton, and its workshop reuses the heat and water from the dyeing process to generate electricity. Very circular!

4. WOTE

This fairly new brand offers a few ethical streetwear items too, and they keep their iconic collections for years: proper slow fashion!

WOTE uses kind materials like GOTS-certified wool and cotton or recycled wool. They also work with Climate Partner to offset their emissions, and they upcycle used denim into new items.

5. ACBC

As for sustainable streetwear-style shoes (no, Nike isn’t as ethical as you might think), I’m positive you’re going to ADORE this brand. 

ACBC offers a huge range of iconic and versatile trainers, in particular. 

They use materials like corn fibre, apple leather, and recycled plastic bottles. To avoid sweatshops, they only work with certified factories that are audited by third parties.

Find more sustainable streetwear brands on Project Cece

We know how difficult and overwhelming it is to find ethical clothes when those stores are scattered all over the web.

So, at Project Cece, we brought hundreds of fair trade brands in one place and added filters to simplify your choices. Of course, that includes plenty of sustainable streetwear brands (and we’re always adding new partners).

So, instead of chasing ever-changing trends and supporting fast fashion companies, it’s now a breeze to find the right sustainable streetwear for you. That’s some serious street cred!