U2 megastar Bono is making it, supermodels are wearing it and elite designers are betting on it -- all in all, fairly good signs that ethical clothing may finally be evolving from hippie to hipster.
The Birkenstock brigade long ago pioneered clothing made from cotton and wool raised according to the strict standards of organic farming or fair-trade businesses, but the market remained small and self-selecting.
Politically charged consumerism is in the air again, after eons of mainstream apathy, fueled by the boom in organic foods, widespread talk about globalization and, perhaps, the simple search for something new.
Several new lines combining high-end fashion with left-wing activism are being rolled out this year, including one backed by the Irish rocker and another by seasoned British designer Katharine Hamnett.
"It was flagged as the trend of the year," Hamnett said of organic clothing, during an interview at a London atelier crammed with eager young stylists, scraps of cloth samples and bits and bobs acquired during a quarter-century of designing.
Hamnett, a willowy militant with a roster of radical causes, gained fame for shocking former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher in a 1984 meeting by wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the words "58 Percent Don't Want Pershing," referring to the US nuclear-weapons program.
She has followed up with a series of statement T-shirts, dressing supermodel Naomi Campbell in a "Save Africa" one, and in her last British show, in September 2003, plastering the catwalk with "Stop War Blair Out" logos.
But Hamnett halted all her clothing lines after a radical rethink of the environmental and health costs of the textile industry, and until she could build a brand on par with her ethics.
"I thought if you told people that there's 2,000 people dying from accidental pesticide poisoning and cotton agriculture, they would do something about it. Forget it ... At the end, I just said, `I can't do this,' and I walked out," she said.
From that end came the beginning of Katharine E Hamnett, the eco and ethical line, whose sample items now patiently await their grand debut in July.
There are pesticide-free wool sweaters soft to the touch, made with fibers from Tasmania and knitted in England; pale Oxford shirts from Tanzania-grown cotton, dapper jackets with recycled zippers, delicate buttons of farmed mother-of-pearl and large, chunky ones made of palm nut, not plastic.
It feels luxurious, not "lumpy," like old-style ethical duds, Hamnett is quick to point out.
The collection breaks out of craft-fair prices, too, running from "affordable to aspirational," including a moderate US$64 for a T-shirt and around US$640 for a "very Englishy" tailored suit.
At edun, another upscale ethical line, Bono is the big-brand draw but the talent behind lies with his wife, Ali Hewson, and New York jeans designer Rogan Gregory.
Their trick, too, is to sell green as the new black for style mavens, without crimping on quality.
Shimmering chiffon dresses, crinkled jackets and cool tees from edun -- which read backward spells "nude," a chain of ethical fast-food outlets in Ireland in which Bono has invested -- are organic whenever possible, made with vegetable dyes and crafted by factories from Lesotho to Peru which pay workers more than what is common in the notoriously exploitative textile trade.
Edun rolled out this spring in upscale US and European stores, including at posh department store Saks Fifth Avenue, where hip-slinging edun jeans go for US$170 while a hemp blazer with bone buttons sells for US$320.
Organic clothing has drawn an increasing number of fans -- organic cotton sales rose 38 percent in 2003 in Britain, with US$36.5 million in projected sales -- as the dangers of conventional crops become known.
Around one-quarter of the world's insecticides are used to grow conventional cotton and at least 8,000 chemicals are used to turn the raw material into clothes and household goods -- and some of them end up in the final product you wear, according to the British organic certifiers Soil Association.
But the fear of lingering pesticides, while it may draw mothers into organic baby stores, may not be the selling point for those who suffer gladly for fashion.
"We've been doing organic cotton for five years now, but we kind of don't make a big deal about it," Dave Hieatt confessed about Howie's, his line for Britain's grunge set of hardcore skaters, bikers, surfers and outdoor folk. "I want you to buy this shirt because it's got a great slogan on it, or because you like the color orange" -- and not because it is made by do-gooders.
The combination of sporty style and low-key philosophy has elevated Howie's from a homespun garage operation perched on the far western edge of Wales to London's trendsetting store Selfridges, and US$3.6 million in sales this year.
Designers say there is no contradiction between pitching environmentalism while encouraging people to shop, arguing that their goods will last longer and do more good all around.
"That's the reason we can get our heads around why we want to grow -- so we can go and do more stuff," Hieatt said. "If we want to go and make people think -- and that's the thing that gets us out of bed in the morning -- then an `earth tax' is a good thing."
Hamnett said upmarket ethical fashion will be "huge" but shoppers need to invest in it -- or, in her words, "Stop buying other people's crap, and buy ours."
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