Green Fibres Organic Cotton Vest

LFM and I have a favourite top each.

Mine is a V-neck from Paul Smith; his is a running top from M&S. They’re both black, fitted, super-soft, hard-wearing, long-lasting, washable at low temperatures, quick drying – and made from Modal.

Modal and Tencel are the environmentally-friendly face of viscose. They’re produced by Lenzing Fibres (www.lenzing.com). Like traditional viscose, they’re made from wood but, in this case, from Austrian beech woods that are sustainably managed. The company has developed an eco-clean way of turning the cellulose into fibre using magnesium bisulfite, ozone and hydrogen peroxide. It’s a closed loop system so by-products are not released into the environment and, in fact, half of the raw waste is extracted and sold commercially.

The rest is used to create energy: Lenzing’s processing plants in Austria and Indonesia (but not the UK and China) are run on electricity, steam and hot water they’ve generated themselves. As a result, the total fibre production produces 1.3 million tons of CO2 less than the equivalent volume of polyester. The equivalent volume of cotton would produce an extra 300,000 tons of CO2, require another 340,000 ha of land and an additional 2.2 billion cubic meters of water than Modal and Tencel do.

The good news is that these fabrics have gone mainstream – they’re mixed into garments sold in high street stores such as Next, M&S, Topshop and Zara UK. It’s just a shame that you can’t request or easily search for clothes exclusively made from them.

There are also a number of other new, green fabrics coming into the market, like one recently created from coffee. Ironically, Jason Chen, the general manager of the Taiwanese Singtex Industrial Company (www.scafe.com.tw), had a brainwave as he was sipping coffee in (where else?) Starbucks.

Most coffee grounds end up in landfill but Singtex is now collecting waste grounds from the Java giant to turn into sportswear. The fabric, spun from the coffee grounds, is soft, light, flexible and breathable and can also be used to produce an outer shell that’s water resistant. Apparently it only takes the grounds from one cup of coffee to make enough material for a couple of T-shirts.

Another innovative fabric that is currently being trialled is spun from nettles. The common stinging nettle was used to produce textiles for thousands of years until people switched to cotton in the fifteenth century. Stinging nettles can be grown sustainably, organically and with little water – in fact, as most gardeners know, they hardly need any encouragement.

Camira Fabrics, (www.camirafabrics.com) based in Yorkshire, has been working for the past four years with Defra on a fabric made from nettles and has now produced a range called Stingplus.

It’s a tough textile primarily made for bus and car seats. Nettle can be turned into finer fabrics too, with a texture like linen. It has the ability to wick moisture away from the body as well as keeping the wearer cool and trapping warm air, plus being naturally anti-bacterial and mould resistant. Brennels, (www.brennels.nl) a Dutch fashion designer, has brought out a range of smart-casual clothes made from the fabric.

A little wackier and not as easy to get hold of is SeaCell, made from seaweed, Pina, from pineapple leaves, Lenpur, a cashmere soft silky fabric produced from white fir wood, soy jersey from India, which has a fabulous drape and mutabar bark from Uganda can be made into a leather or canvas lookalike.

But buying your own eco-friendly fabric and running up a gorgeous green garment is a little harder. It’s one of the main complaints that ethical designers have – it’s difficult to buy small quantities of good quality eco fabrics. You could try buying vintage fabric or go to Soil Association approved Green Fibres (www.greenfibres.com) which sells organic cotton, silk and hemp, Brighton’s hemp shop (www.thehempshop.co.uk). Oeco textiles (www.oecotextiles.com) and cotton, hemp, soy and bamboo from Eco earth fabrics (www.ecoearthfabrics.co.uk).

But, if you’re anything like me, these fabrics are not going to make your heart sing, your creative juices flow or make you want to whip our a sewing machine faster than you can say, ‘Thread’. Let’s hope seaweed and coffee go mainstream.