Ethical underwear UK: the best underwear, lingerie and sleepwear brands laid bare
Finding activewear that is both practical and comfortable, all while making you feel and look good, isn’t easy at the best of times – let alone when you add the criteria of sustainability on top.
Recycled plastics are everywhere in sportswear these days, and arguably, there’s a place for them – but not on this list. Whether you’re after a new pair of leggings for yoga, a hoodie for the gym or a lightweight jacket for hiking, below we’ve compiled a list of some of our favourite sustainable activewear items for women that tick all the right boxes. All prove that you don’t need to be wearing plastic to achieve your work-out and lifestyle goals.
Here are the brands you need to know for workout clothes for the gym, sportswear for hikes, and athleisure for the streets and the beach. Each of the brands we feature offer better quality, longer-lasting and sleeker looking alternative apparel to the fast fashion sportswear industry. They prove that on-trend, stylish and functional design doesn’t need to come at the cost of the earth.
Best women’s sustainable activewear UK, at a glance:
Here’s a selection of items from each of the brands we feature, to help you quickly shop and identify the type of products they offer. If you want more details about what makes each brand so good, scroll below the products where you’ll find all the details you need…
Best women’s sustainable activewear UK, the details:
Looking to refine your choices? Here’s why we love each brand and why they are a better choice than micro-plastic shedding high-street activewear.
Wellicious | Sustainable yoga and activewear
- Wellicious creates chic yoga and activewear that looks, feels and performs fantastically.
- Their clothes are safe for the planet and safe for your skin. All Wellicous yoga and activewear is toxin-free and microplastic-free.
- It is a Cradle to Cradle Certified® brand specialising in stylish and sustainable yoga fashion, including sports bras, leggings and tank tops.
- Made from sustainable lightweight yet strong silhouette-smoothing fabrics, their garments let you move freely and with confidence through every pose.
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Silverstick | Clothing for the great outdoors
Why we love Silverstick:
- Silverstick is an outdoor clothing brand that embodies the spirit of adventure.
- Available in a range of colours and featuring creative artwork, their designs are stylish, durable and comfortable – and they’re fairly-priced, too.
- The clothing is designed to ‘leave only footprints’ as it uses GOTS certified Aegean organic cotton, low impact certified non-toxic natural dyes, and water based inks for printing.
- Only premium fabrics are used and to ensure durability, the brand stress-tests every garment so they know it can cope with anything the outdoors can throw at it.
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Rapanui | Adventure wear for the beach
Why we love Rapanui:
- Rapanui is a great brand for organic cotton essentials, especially for lovers of the ocean and great outdoors
- Rapanui use a closed-loop water system for dyeing clothes that filters water so well it’s pure enough to drink.
- The factories where the clothes are made are powered by renewables and all fabric printing is done using non-toxic inks.
- Every organic cotton product is designed to be sent back for remanufacturing, which is made easy by free postage and a £5 credit towards the next purchase.
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Underscored | sustainable activewear for tennis and padel
Why we love Underscored:
- Underscored focuses on sustainable activewear, specifically designed for tennis and padel.
- It’s inspired by life on the court but designed to move beyond sport and into everyday life.
- Underscored uses natural and bio-based materials instead of the polyester, nylon and elastane that dominate most sportswear.
- Every product page on their website includes a full provenance section, showing customers exactly where and how each garment was made – from fibre origin through to finished product.
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WAWWA | Street style for an active lifestyle
Why we love WAWWA:
- WAWWA is a fashionable unisex clothing brand. Their contemporary style marries practicality and comfort with a trendy, cool edge that’s also high quality wardrobe essentials, like t-shirts, sweatshirts, jackets, hoodies, across body bags, trousers and even the odd bucket hat.
- From the offset, WAWWA’s founders have focused on creating clothes in a more planet and people friendly manner.
- They have established a transparent, ethical and eco-friendly supply-chain.
- Items made in Manchester pay workers above a living wage, and one factory in Bolton refuses to work with fast fashion brands.
- Around 95% of the materials used are sustainably sourced, including GOTS certified organic cotton, recycled yarn and recycled denim.
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Arms of Andes | Alpaca wool activewear
Why we love Arms of Andes:
- Arms of Andes makes outdoor clothing from high-quality natural Alpaca Wool, including t-shirts, hoodies, thermals, jackets, underwear and more.
- Alpaca wool is naturally thermal and moisture-wicking, so it keeps your body warm and protected in extreme weather.
- It is also great for summer – lightweight, breathable and sweat-resistant and even has naturally antibacterial and odour resistant properties which help you and your clothes stay clean.
- They use 100% Alpaca wool from family-run Alpaca farms in the Peruvian Andes.
- The brand has developed plastic-free zippers, switched to 100% natural fabric finishing and removed all traces of petrochemicals in their supply chain.
- It is a single origin manufacturing brand, meaning everything from making the fibre through to the finished garment and packaging happens in Peru.
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Shop Like You Give a Damn | Sustainable vegan online marketplace
Why we love Shop Like You Give a Damn:
- Shop Like You Give A Damn is an online marketplace that, as the name quite literally suggests, makes ethical shopping easy for those who give a damn.
- Shoppers can filter products by criteria that matter most to them. So, you can easily shop inline with your values – or those of the person you’re buying for – whether that’s supporting a social enterprise, or gifts made from recycled or plastic-free materials.
- Everything it sells is 100% vegan, fair and sustainable, while it also champions being inclusive as well as mission-driven businesses.
- NOTE: Shop Like You Give a Damn list a lot of European brands, so always check delivery taxes and customs duties
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Pitod | Genderless sportswear
Why we love Pitod:
- Pitod is a fashion brand that believes “the frame we are born in does not define who or what we are”. They produce genderless everyday clothing that is designed to be worn by anyone, regardless of their gender identity.
- Pitod’s garments are timeless, versatile and made to last from organic and recycled materials.
- Pitod’s mission is to give back to the planet and empower the people that work on it. Their items are produced in a single factory, Stanley Stella in Bangladesh, which was carefully selected for their high sustainable, fair trade and ethical standards as well as their use of only organic and/or recycled materials.
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The Live Frankly seal of approval:
These are really good brands, doing good things. To be included in this list, each brand has been given the Live Frankly seal of approval. We are not a certification, but we talk with every brand and ask them to complete a comprehensive questionnaire about their ethical standards before we feature them. No brand is perfect – we’re all operating in an imperfect world – but only purpose-driven brands that are working to change things for the better feature on Live Frankly.
We ask that workers’ rights and pay are ensured across the supply chain, that brands use sustainable materials and want to know about their governance structures. This means you can be confident these brands are some of the most ethical and sustainable around. If you have any questions, please get in touch.
Final note: Free returns really hit small brands hard because they’re not actually free. It takes time to pack and unpack clothes and costs money to send packages back. Did you know that sometimes big brands send your returns straight to landfill? So, help them out. Try only to order what you really want, and return items when absolutely necessary.
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