8 March 2023
It's been a year since we tested the eco-friendly collections from well-known fast fashion brands. We were curious if there was any improvement and made an audit. Check out our most interesting findings below.
Despite its negative impact, the fast fashion industry will continue to thrive. This may sound daunting, but there are many things each of us can do to combat our environmental impact. Shopping smart and making informed decisions is key to navigating the uncertain and dynamic seas of fashion. We believe that our fast fashion experiment is still providing you with many interesting insights and will continue guiding you to make more sustainable choices.
Changing habits isn't always easy without a clear starting point but we want to make this process as manageable for you as possible. For this reason, we invite you to take a look at our eco deals and browse through a wide selection of clothing, accessories, and health and beauty brands that do well for the planet and the people.
Big fast fashion brands continually release new collections with trends that come and go at the speed of light. This creates a lot of pressure on farmers to cultivate more cotton, manufacturers to produce faster, retailers to sell more and eventually on consumers to replace their clothes more frequently. The result is obvious: huge exploitation of natural and human resources as well as a gigantic problem of textile waste. Nevertheless, we continuously buy fast fashion, don’t we?
We are here to remind you that breaking the fast fashion cycle doesn’t mean we have to stop buying clothes, nor give up comfort. Mass brands know about their destructive impact on the planet and they also know about the emerging eco trends among consumers. This is how eco collections evolved.
We at Moincoins, stand for sustainable choices and try to help our users navigate to better shopping decisions. This is how the idea to test eco collections was born. We wanted to see if those sustainability claims are proven by the items our favorite brands produce.
Is this eco clothing worth buying?
Is it made to last?
Is there any greenwashing involved?
To answer these questions we ordered and tested T-shirts, sweaters, jeans and dresses from the H&M Conscious Choice, Pull&Bear Join Life, Zara Join Life and Guess Eco collections. We attempted to give you valuable insights about the garments’ sustainability, textile certifications, transparency, durability and overall quality. These results surprised us more than once, in both good and bad ways. Check them out!
We documented our testing not only in words but also in videos. We recorded the whole process and created a YouTube series with our findings from testing the T-shirts, sweaters, jeans and dresses.
In this video, we’ve put together our final and the most interesting research results. Find out the winning products of each category and of course the unexpected best eco collection. We will also share some valuable insights from our testing experience, “hate to love” items and our favorite eco-friendly outfit. Watch the video to find out more about sustainable fashion from your beloved brands!
Pull & Bear
Join Life
H&M
Conscious Choice
Guess
Eco
Zara
Join Life
Materials
Pull&Bear
Join Life
Certifications
Zara
Join Life
Product information
Pull&Bear
Join Life
Durability
H&M
Conscious Choice
Quality
Guess
Eco
Materials
Guess
Eco
Certifications
H&M
Conscious Choice
Product information
Guess
Eco
Durability
Zara
Join Life
Quality
Zara
Join Life
H&M
Conscious Choice
Pull&Bear
Join Life
Zara
Join Life
Guess
Eco
Zara Join Life &
Pull&Bear Join Life
H&M
Conscious Choice
Guess
Eco
Pull&Bear Basic Round Neck T-shirt
Pull&Bear Basic Mom Jeans
of the tested items are not available in an online shop 6 months after purchase
the shape was not flattering
BUT
the quality was good
the fabric quality was bad
BUT
the beach style turned it all around
the style wasn’t ours
BUT
but we saved so much time on ironing
not really sustainable
BUT
very trendy
We can definitely see the progress - fast fashion brands are making changes to make their operations and produced items more sustainable. This includes using more eco-friendly fabrics, providing transparent information and ensuring high quality.
Most of the tested brands have set big eco goals which is a good start. But overall we have to agree there is still a lot to implement:
The above are all strong indicators that the fast fashion industry is just trend-hopping on the sustainability wagon instead of reinventing itself in favor of the environment. With that said:
Check out the performance and test results of the four product categories.
Weighing each criterion equally allowed us to give eco collections a maximum score of five points. Data collecting and scoring were conducted by the Moincoins team. Our testers were responsible for measuring the performance of every garment for over three months. It's interesting to highlight that none of the eco collections or products achieved the ultimate score and in many cases the differences were minor (sometimes in a range of 0.2 points).
If you're looking for information on sustainable fashion and brands that offer eco-friendly clothing, the below articles might be interesting for you.