The difficulty of combining ethics, design and quality might be one explanation why the business has been slow to react. The reputation of ethical fashion has not been good, it has been perceived as something rather ugly and ill-fitting. In addition, customers have not been willing to pay so much for ethical products as for luxury goods. This has changed with the term ecoluxury.
There is no general definition of ethical production, which make it confusing as well. It consists of so many different aspects; organic fabrics, recycled fabrics, production methods that sustain local communities and reduction of the carbon footprint.
Another obstacle is the complexity of the supply chain. Many companies, who strive to have a sustainable production, cannot guarantee that the whole production chain is environmentally friendly. Especially bigger global luxury brands are careful when speaking about their ethical production as they know that even a small mistake might be disastrous as they are watched by the media. Anyhow, Marc Jacobs, Giorgio Armani and Calvin Klein have parts of their diffusion ranges made in non-exploitative factories in Sri Lanka. Louis Vuitton is helping a japanese tree-planting association create a forest and the Danish brand Noir employs Ugandan farmers to grow organic cotton.
It is a huge challenge to achieve ethical production in all its aspects but these are still the early days. Stella McCartney is quoted saying: “I think our industry is one of the last to try to do things responsible”. Orsola de Castro, who runs the recycled-fabric brand From Somewhere, believes “It will be impossible for large companies to operate non-ethically in 20 years.” Ecoluxury has come to stay.