"Regenerative fashion" is a guiding principle for major fashion designers like Chloé and Stella McCartney. It works like this: Regenerative fashion uses a 360-degree approach to the style world, ensuring designers don’t just create low-impact jeans or sneakers—they make clothes and accessories that regrow plants and replenish soil. Regenerative fashion often creates fabric using regenerative farming techniques or recycled fabrics, along with fair trade labor and social responsibility towards all employees and land used. Basically, if “sustainable fashion” is a flower, then “regenerative fashion” is a garden.

Is regenerative fashion more expensive than designer fashion? Not usually, but it can cost more than department store clothes because it pays fair prices for its materials and workers, and creates garments with skilled labor that are built to last beyond one season (or one Instagram post).

Here are some of our favorite regenerative fashion brands right now, as seen in Vogue, on celebrities, and in the closets of the Wild Elements community

THE EFFORTLESS COOL: MAGGIE MARILYN
Like Lorde and the Hobbits, designer Maggie Hewitt hails from New Zealand. She studied fashion at Whitecliffe College of Arts and Design before aligning with the United Nations on their Sustainable Development Goals, and creating a line of slouchy blazers and cinched trench coats seen on Meghan Markle and Karlie Kloss. Hewitt makes every piece of her supply chain transparent on her website, and puts nutrients back into the soil with Good Earth Cotton, a carbon-positive farm in Moree, Australia.

Because her “slow fashion” line is made with expert care and meant to last for years in your closet, her prices are definitely high, but she often has discount backstock on Yoox, and her quality is so good that the cost-per-wear of her killer jeans is far lower than a fast fashion binge. (So much cooler, too.)

THE HIPPIE DREAM MACHINE: CHRISTY DAWN
“Farm to closet” is the way Christy Dawn describes their materials, which are grown on 10 acres of Indian cotton fields that were once un-tillable thanks to pollution and climate change. Thanks to land stewardship and a return to biodiverse seed planting, Christy Dawn’s small farm community has seen a big return—enough to yield 1300 dresses, and pull over 38 tons of carbon from the atmosphere.

Dresses range from $200-$400, which isn’t cheap… but also hits the upper range of several fast fashion brands. Unlike those options, these pieces come with a transparent supply chain, an ethical manufacturing plan, and a commitment to long-lasting quality and classic design.

Also, let’s face it: These dresses are comfortable to wear but also super dreamy!

THE ART SCHOOL KIDS: MIA VESPER, PSYCHIC OUTLAW, and BY LIV HANDMADE
With fans like Rihanna and Harry Styles, the “cottagecore” vibe isn’t going anywhere—and that’s great. Designers like Mia Vesper and Rebecca Wright are using discarded quilts, tablecloths, bandanas, and other Goodwill textiles to create incredible coats, dresses, and more.

Fans of the brands can buy merch two ways: Either shop their ready-to-wear collections online, or—plot twist—send them your old favorite hoodie / comforter / sleeping bag / soccer jersey and let them turn your beloved original garment into something totally new and substantially gorgeous.

With labels like these, you won’t just be investing in a one-of-a-kind statement piece by an independent designer. You’ll also be helping take discarded textiles out of the trash, where they can cause major methane buildup in the atmosphere. So much winning!

THE JEANIUS: NOBODY DENIM
The best (and cheapest) option for a “new” pair of jeans is to buy them secondhand, full stop. But while there’s still a market demand for new pants, there will be labels making them. Enter Nobody Denim, the brand that’s making jeans with “cotton certified as carbon positive through an independent foundation.”

There are also brands like Re:Done that take old denim jeans or bolts of indigo fabric and refashion them into new pieces. The results are pretty stunning, and Re:Done claims it’s kept almost 150,000 pairs of old pants out of the trash. That’s amazing, but if you can’t swing the $200 price? You can get brand new (with tags!) jeans for around $30 on any resale platform, and often, your local thrift store, too.

SEE ALSO:
Is Fast Fashion Ever Okay?
This Is How to Save 90% More Energy at the Laundry
Regenerative Living, Explained