Stella McCartney and Chloe clothes RSS Feed

Stella McCartney is well-known as an environmentalist. She never uses animal skin, fur and even goes to great lengths to reduce her use of plastic in her clothing line(Read about her castor oil sunglasses here).

But because she is a luxury designer, her stuff carry high designer prices. Do you think that the eco-friendliness of her pieces can justify the expensive prices? Or do you expect to get real leather, real suede and etc. at those price points?

I appreciate her efforts but the problem with the modern environmental position is that it has become a trend which ultimately causes "environmentally friendly" product prices to skyrocket everywhere (compare Seventh Generation dish detergent to Ajax, for example). I can't afford big name designer clothing anyway, but I feel that using environmental awareness as an excuse to increase prices makes it look like a cheap trick. If a designer [or manufacturer, retailer, you name it] really wants to encourage environmental awareness through their goods, the right thing to do is make those items affordable so they become a truly viable alternative. Otherwise, it appears as though only the wealthy can afford to be environmentally friendly. The rest of us just have to do the best we can using common sense.