NuBonelle, Textiles & Yarn: Interesting Facts - Sustainable Fashion
Textiles play a huge role in how our clothes are made, worn, and discarded. From fast fashion and synthetics to natural fibres and sustainable clothing, understanding textile content, conception, production and their qualities can help us make more thoughtful sustainable choices.
Let us consider textiles in the light of sustainable fashion. There’s literally a whole world behind the fabrics we wear every day — and once you start looking, it’s surprisingly fascinating… and sometimes a little uncomfortable too. We will take a gentle wander through some eye-opening facts about fashion, textiles, and why our clothes matter more than we might think.
🌿 What is Fashion?
Fashion refers to a set of trends and styles that depict a particular historical and cultural period. Furthermore, it is an expression of creativity and individuality that is shown through clothing, accessories, behaviours, and even attitudes. Before we begin let’s clarify a few key fashion related terms:
Fast fashion: is quickly produced trendy clothes, of lower quality, sold at low price points, may be worn once and discarded. This leads to overproduction, overconsumption and waste.
Slow fashion: higher quality clothing, made-to-last clothes, sold at higher prices and designed and constructed to be worn longer. Resulting in buying fewer clothes.
Sustainable fashion: garments and fabric that are made to last, they can be re worn, repaired, sold on or upcycled.
Biobased textiles: derived from renewable biological sources (plants, animals, microorganisms) instead of fossil fuels, offering sustainable alternatives to conventional synthetics
Biodegradable: fabrics made from natural or regenerated materials (like cotton, hemp, wool, linen, Tencel) that will decompose naturally by microorganisms, reducing textile waste and pollution, unlike synthetic fibres polyester and nylon.
✨Let’s Start With the Big One: Polyester in Fashion
Polyester is now the most widely used fibre in the world, making up over 50% of global textile production. So, half the clothes we wear are manufactured from crude oil into a polymer plastic. An estimated 57% of the polyester produced is used for fast fashion.
It’s popular because it’s cheap, strong, wrinkle-resistant, and easy to mass-produce. But there’s a downside.
Each time we wash polyester clothing, tiny microfibres are released into our waterways. These are known as microplastics, but they don’t biodegrade and have been found in rivers, oceans, wildlife… and even in us.
That doesn’t mean polyester is “bad” or should be banned overnight. It does mean that how much we use, and how thoughtfully we use it, really matters.
Other synthetic fabrics like nylon, acrylic, and elastane are also originate from plastic and take decades or centuries to break down, even when recycled.
🌿 Fast Fashion Impact and Overproduction: Why it Matters
To understand what is currently happening in the fashion let us consider a few facts and how the industry has evolved:
· In the 1880s a dress costs a week’s wages, in 2025 a dress can costs ½ hours wages.
· In 2000, UK consumers purchased 8 kilos of clothes per person, in 2024 this had risen to 15 kilos, for 2030, this is estimated at19 kilos.
· Consumers wear 30% of what they buy.
· 10% of carbon emissions are from textiles.
Fashion didn’t always move at the speed it does now. In the late 19th century clothing collections were produced in two seasons: autumn/winter and spring/summer. After the Industrial Revolution new systems were developed. Companies had to produce huge volumes to get the cost and pricing right for fashion clothing.
In the 20th century electricity became more commonly used in factories and homes. Demands for fashion trends were fuelled by new technologies: such as sewing machines, synthetic fibres, assembly lines and Computer-Aided Design (CAD).
In the 21st century trend cycles sped up, in some sectors as much as 52 “micro-seasons” per year driven by social media. Online-only brands are producing at an even faster rates using complicated algorithms that can get new styles to market in days – referred to as ultra-fast fashion.
The result?
- Massive overproduction
- Huge volumes of unsold clothing
- An estimated 90+ million tonnes of textile waste are discarded globally each year
Fast fashion tends to be low priced, and it causes skilled workers to be exploited, paid low wages and work in unsafe and precarious work environments.
Generally, low-price garments have no long-term value, so a lot ends up in landfill or the overproduction is shipped elsewhere, often to countries already dealing with waste management challenges.
It’s one of those things that’s hard to unsee once you know — and it’s one of the reasons I believe slower, smaller-scale making really matters.
🌱 Natural Fibres: Are these Sustainable Textiles?
Natural fibres often get labelled as the “good guys” — and while they’re not flawless, many are genuinely more planet-friendly when sourced responsibly.
- Cotton is breathable, versatile, and biodegradable. However, conventional farming can be water intensive, use harmful pesticides and herbicides that are harmful to the environment. Organic cotton is best as it significantly reduces chemical use.
- Linen (from flax) uses less water, requires fewer chemicals, and often improves with age.
- Hemp grows quickly, needs little intervention, and produces strong, long-lasting fibres.
- Bamboo is fast-growing. It requires no pesticides or fertilizers. It is strong, soft and lightweight, it is ideal for sensitive skin and activewear due to its hypoallergenic nature.
So, whilst cotton, linen, hemp and bamboo when compared to synthetic fibres, have a much lighter environmental footprint, but even with these their finishing processes can be bad for the planet.
Textiles made from natural fibres of the Bamboo plant are highly sustainable.
✨Textile processing, Dyeing & Finishing: The Hidden Impact
Dyeing and finishing textiles can account for a huge proportion of water use and pollution. Some estimates suggest textile dyeing is responsible for up to 20% of global industrial water pollution.
Therefore, low-impact natural dyes and responsible processes matter so much, even if we don’t always see them. Overall natural is best!
Linen is an ideal textile for sustainable fashion
This is why reused, deadstock, or already-dyed fabrics can be such a positive option, as the environmental cost has already happened.
🌱 A Quick Word on Textile Certifications (Because It Can Get Confusing!)
Have you’ve ever seen labels like GOTS, OEKO-TEX, or GRS and wondered what they mean? These are textile certification that verifies organic materials and sustainable production practices.
In simple terms, certifications help verify claims around things like:
- fibre content
- chemical safety
- textile production and the environmental impact
- ethical production
They don’t mean something is “perfect,” but they do offer reassurance and transparency.
Certification can be expensive and complex, especially for small businesses. Consequently, some genuinely responsible makers may not always carry official labels. It’s another example of how sustainability isn’t always black and white.
I will revisit Certifications and explore this further in my upcoming blog: Textiles & Yarn: Interesting Facts About Sustainable Interiors (Part 2)
🌿 So… Where Does That Leave Us?
Somewhere realistic, I hope.
We’re not all going to wear perfectly sustainable clothing all the time — and that’s okay. Awareness is a powerful first step toward ethical fashion, and small changes really do add up when enough of us make them.
For me, this means:
- Choosing better fibres and textiles, where possible
- Reusing and reviving textiles wherever I can
- Designing pieces meant to last
- Being open about where compromises still exist
It’s not about being perfect — it’s about being thoughtful, using eco-friendly or sustainable materials, circular approaches and opting for sustainable fashion.
🌿 The NuBonelle Perspective
Since writing my first blog, I’ve been spending a lot of time researching, experimenting, and quietly developing NuBonelle’s collections.
What’s becoming clearer is that sustainability isn’t one single path. That’s why NuBonelle is growing three thoughtful collections, each approaching conscious design and making in a slightly different way:
✨ Revival
Made using upcycled textiles, revived deadstock, recycled materials and reclaimed garments. These pieces give existing textiles and garments a second life. As sourcing varies, every batch is a little different and runs are short. These textiles and garments would otherwise go into landfill.
Sustainable Fashion - Collecting garments for Upcycling
🌿 Better Choices
Using natural fibres such as cotton, linen and wool. These materials aren’t certified, but they are chosen carefully as they are: lovely designs, biodegradable and for their lower environmental impact compared to synthetic alternatives.
Biodegradable Cottons
🌱 Positive Impact
Created using certified eco-friendly materials such as cotton, hemp, linen, bamboo, Tencel, mixed natural fibres and other plant-based textiles. This collection of sustainable materials represents the most measurable environmental progress within NuBonelle.
All three collections are part of the same journey. Some pieces reduce impact through reuse, others through conscious and better material choices — and all of them are shaped by what’s realistically available, affordable, and responsible at the time. All will be made to a high quality with intention, transparency, and care.
The first pieces from the Revival and Better Choices collections will be launching in February, and I am really looking forward to sharing them with you.
Choose quality over quantity.
Choose handmade, upcycled, and small-batch.
Choose NuBonelle.
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As always, I’m accumulating knowledge as I go — and I’m grateful to have you along for the journey.
Small steps are powerful when taken by many.
Let’s Keep Talking
I’d genuinely love to know:
- Did any of this surprise you?
- Have you ever checked what your clothes are made from?
- Is there a fabric you love… or one you try to avoid?
Next time, I’ll be looking at Textiles & Yarn: Interiors — because what we bring into our homes matters just as much as what we wear.
Thanks for being here 💚
If you would like to access sustainability training the Carbon Literacy Project provides generic training courses and specialist for different sectors. https://eu.patagonia.com/gb/en/actionworks/organizations/the-carbon-literacy-project/