5 Surprisingly Affordable Ethically-Made Labels You Can Feel Good About Shopping

A hard truth to swallow—especially in the age of $20 jeans and $5 tank tops—is that quality costs money. For designers to produce garments and accessories through supply channels that pay workers at every level a living wage, they need to set prices to reflect that. For those of us that love fashion and want to shop ethically, but don’t have an unlimited budget, this can be a bit of a moral dilemma—do we pony up the extra cash and forgo that second pair of shoes we really, really wanted? Or do we decide that, like $10 green juice and $34 spin class, ethical fashion is a luxury we’d like to be regular consumers of … in theory.

While more and more brands are paying attention to the environmental impact of their products—even H&M is holding World Recycle Week right now—what’s more challenging is finding places to shop that are not only environmentally-friendly, but people-friendly, too. That means paying attention to how transparent labels are about labor conditions at every level, from factories to corporate HQ.

Here, we’ve found five brands that are excelling at ethical design—at prices that won’t make you balk. Now, we’re not talking Forever 21 prices—after all, the idea is to buy less and buy better after all—but we think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by how accessible feel-good fashion is right now.