"90% of buyers want more transparency on clothing prices and how they are made" More transparency, yes, but how? In the food and cosmetics industries, applications such as Yuka or Clean Beauty appeared a few years ago to help buyers decipher their products.
In fashion, however, it is only much more recently that awareness has arisen. The tragedy of the collapse of the Rana Plaza in Dhaka, Bangladesh in 2013, revealing the harsh working conditions of workers working for major fashion brands, played a large part in this.
Today, how can we decipher our clothes to dress responsibly ? What solutions exist to find out how a garment is made? Are there reliable applications that can help us make informed choices?

Need for ethical and eco-responsible fashion

Faced with the rise in ecological and health risks for the planet, many consumers are reviewing their priorities and consumption patterns. They want to buy in a more informed, more conscious, more ethical way. They want to consume “better”. Transparency on the content and manufacturing of purchases has become a prerequisite. However, clean fashion has only recently come to the fore, probably because of its glamorous side which has long been an illusion or a screen. To “know everything” about products, applications have taken a prominent place. So much so that they have forced food and cosmetic brands to review their formulations! In fashion, creating an app is much more complex to achieve, if only because of the absence of data linked to barcodes on clothing.

Apps that decipher eco-responsible fashion

Dressing according to your values, your commitments and with style has become much easier thanks to applications, even if they are still few in number in fashion.

The Clear Fashion App

The two designers, Marguerite Dorangeon and Rym Trabelsi, asked themselves the question of transparency to create their Clear Fashion application with the ambition of responding to it in a comprehensive manner. By downloading this free application, we discover the social and environmental impact of our clothes or those we would like to buy. All via a rating system out of 100, according to 4 themes: environment, humans, health, animals. More than 150 impact criteria are taken into account. The method is 100% independent, thanks to the survey responses and the support of a committee of experts. "Brands have no influence on our evaluation system" assure the designers. Currently, more than 300 brands have their commitments deciphered and if the brand you are looking for is not referenced, you can request its evaluation. Brands can send their data and updates themselves.

How does it work?

Simply by scanning the garment's barcode or the composition label. Because if the brand has not provided the information related to the garment's barcodes itself, the application will not be able to read it. For example, The North Face is indicated as not having wished to respond to Clear Fashion. The application therefore has no data on the production sites or on a certain number of practices. On the other hand, it has awarded scores according to the information found by the experts, which indicates 42/100 for the environment (Medium risks), 35/100 for humans (High risks), 51/100 for health (Medium risks) and a mediocre 7/100 for animals (Very high risks). The brand can provide feedback at any time. Details on the brands that participated are available on the website www.clear-fashion.com, such as Sézane, Veja, Decathlon, Adidas, etc. A search for the top ethical brands can be done by category (sweaters, skirts, jeans, etc.) and a Clear Fashion impact assessment is also available. The founders are looking for ambassadors to help them amplify their mission and accelerate the movement, Go!

The Good on You app

Launched in 2015 in Australia, then in the United States and other countries, it is the first eco-responsible application to have rated fashion brands.
Internationally, the Good on You application rates 2000 brands according to three ethical criteria: the environment, animals and humans, based on their relationship with the environment, wildlife and working conditions.

How does it work?

Just type in the name of a brand to see the score it is given. Brands are ranked according to five scores: very good 5, good 4, it's a start 3, not good enough 2, we avoid 1. A text justifies the brand's score. You can also find alternative ethical brands if the brand under scrutiny has a bad score.
The application and its website also offer interesting content, such as the 10 most ethical and “sustainable” French fashion brands (or German, American brands, etc.), the most ecological hoodies or glasses, etc. You can directly buy clothes from clean brands by linking to their site.

The marketplace for eco-responsible fashion.

There you can choose clothes from committed fashion brands offered by 'market places' like Wedressfair, which brings together 60 brands, according to a charter visible on their site such as for example "Each item of clothing contains at least 90% eco-responsible materials."

Ethical fashion logos

Just look directly at the clothes to see if there are any logos.

• Oeko-tex guarantees textiles without toxic products for the body and the environment - but which may be made from synthetic and therefore polluting fibres.
• GOTS is a label that ensures that the product is organic and manufactured in an environmentally and socially responsible manner.

Clean fashion advice

It is recommended to wash new clothes twice, in order to eliminate some of the heavy metals, formaldehyde and dyes which are carcinogenic, nano particles and other endocrine disruptors…

With the rise of awareness at all levels, applications and means of deciphering clothing and accessories are promised a bright future!