Cornwall - A Hub For Ethical Fashion

Catching on fast to the changes we need to make for our planet, is Cornwall. In the past several years we’ve been banning plastic from our homes and eateries, cleaning our beaches, and there are more refill, waste-free food stations popping up than ever. It’s a trend that’s easy to get behind, but one thing many of us tend to overlook is perhaps one of the biggest contributors to environmental waste of them all: clothing.

With cheap, high street stores on our doorstep, it’s no wonder shopping half-heartedly for clothes has become so easy. We buy clothes for almost any occasion: a date night, a work dinner, family visiting, a birthday party, anything that creates the opportunity for something new, we’re there in the shops, browsing away. Whilst this necessarily isn’t a bad thing, it does mean as a society our sense of ‘throwaway fashion’ or ‘need for newness’ has exceeded our ‘make do and mend’ mentality. Instead of a few good dresses or shirts for nice occasions, we’re more inclined to want a new one every time we do something special.

Thankfully the fashion revolution is alive and well in Cornwall, with dozens of independent shops and producers specializing in sustainable and ethically made clothing. One company which has been pioneering eco-friendly clothing for the past 30 years is Nomads, a fair-trade company creating contemporary clothing made sustainable. Celebrating natural fibers, traditional artisan techniques and a love for Cornish living.

Despite being ahead of the game for three decades, this doesn’t mean that Nomads aren’t still looking for new developments to make their products even better, “We are constantly evolving as new opportunities become available, and are making changes; we’ve just switched to 100% biodegradable packaging and have become GOTS certified,” explains Vicky, Founding Director of Nomads.

GOTS stands for The Global Organic Textile Standard and is the worldwide leading textile processing standard for organic fibers that include ecological and social criteria.