It’s the most unremarkable item in your wardrobe. You’ve never Googled it, never thought twice before buying one, and you almost certainly have several. A plain white t-shirt. Completely uninteresting. And yet, if you follow it back to its beginnings - the field, the factory, the supply chain - it turns out to have quite a lot to say for itself. None of it particularly comfortable.
Cotton: the overachiever nobody talks about
Let’s start with water. One conventional cotton t-shirt takes around 2,700 litres of water to produce. That’s enough drinking water for one person for 900 days. For a garment you picked up because it was there and it was cheap and it seemed fine.
Then there’s the pesticide problem. Cotton covers around 2.5% of the world’s farmland and accounts for 16% of its insecticides; more than any other single crop. The Environmental Justice Foundation has been documenting this for years: the impact on farmers, on surrounding communities, on water sources. It is, as industries go, quietly catastrophic.
And yet none of this is on the label. The label just says “cotton”. Which is, technically, true.
The ‘organic’ problem
Here’s where it gets murkier. ‘Organic’ on a clothing label is largely unregulated. Without certification, it can mean almost anything - or nothing. Brands know this. Some rely on it.
GOTS - the Global Organic Textile Standard - is one of the few certifications that actually audits the entire supply chain, from the field where the cotton is grown to the finished garment. It covers pesticide use, water treatment, workers’ rights, and chemical processing. It is rigorous, which is precisely why most brands don’t bother with it.
Certification is expensive. The supply chain requirements are demanding. And the honest truth is that most consumers won’t check, so there’s very little commercial incentive to go through the process.
Fast fashion’s very convenient relationship with transparency
People buy around 60–70 new garments a year and wear most of them about seven times. Fast fashion didn’t happen by accident; it was engineered. Disposable clothes mean repeat customers. Trend cycles that used to run twice a year now refresh weekly. The business model depends on you not thinking too hard about what you’re buying.
There’s a conversation worth having about who bears the real cost of cheap clothing - and it’s not the people buying it, by the way. It’s the cotton farmers working in chemically intensive conditions. It’s the garment workers on poverty wages. It’s the waterways and communities around factories in countries where environmental regulation is conveniently light.
Fast fashion isn’t kept alive by people who can’t afford anything else. It’s kept alive by the rest of us buying on impulse. On autopilot. The repeat purchase. The supermarket grab. The “it’s only a fiver”. That’s the market.
What it actually takes to do this differently
Over the last year, we’ve transitioned every product in our range to GOTS certified organic cotton. It’s something we’ve wanted to do since we started, and if we’re being honest, it has not been straightforward.
Certified organic cotton is not easy to source in small quantities. The supply chain infrastructure is built around volume; large brands, large orders. For small businesses, the barriers are real: limited suppliers, higher minimum orders than you can meet, and a significant price premium. Nobody tells you this when you set out to ‘do the right thing’.
The cotton itself costs more. The certified facilities cost more. And we haven’t increased our prices in two years. That’s a choice we’ve made deliberately, because we think the commitment matters more than the margin right now.
We’re also working through our B Corp verification; a process that looks hard at how a business actually operates, not just what it says about itself. GOTS certification is part of that picture. It’s not a marketing exercise. It’s a paper trail that proves what’s in your clothes.
Why any of this matters for a plain white tee
The basics are where most of the volume is. It’s not the statement pieces or the occasion wear that makes up the bulk of what we buy: it’s the t-shirts, the underwear, the everyday things we reach for without thinking.
Which means the basics are exactly where the impact is, too. One better t-shirt, worn a hundred times, beats ten forgettable ones. Not just environmentally... in every sense.
We made ours plain white and plain black. Nothing to look at. Designed for grown women who want something that actually fits and actually lasts. GOTS certified organic cotton throughout.
Know what you’re buying. Buy better when you can.
And you know what? The humble t-shirt is a good place to start.
Sources
Water usage — WWF / World Wildlife Fund: ‘Thirsty Crops’ report. The 2,700 litre figure is widely cited across sustainability literature including National Geographic and the University of Waterloo.
Insecticide use — Environmental Justice Foundation: ‘The Casualties of Cotton’ (2017). Cotton accounts for approximately 16% of global insecticide use despite occupying around 2.5% of cultivated farmland. Cited consistently across EJF, Pesticide Action Network, and peer-reviewed literature.
Garments purchased per year — Based on US consumer data (American Apparel & Footwear Association / McKinsey Global Fashion Index). The 60–70 garment figure reflects reported American purchasing patterns; global averages vary by region.
Average wears per garment — Widely cited across sustainability reporting including the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s ‘A New Textiles Economy’ (2017) and multiple fast fashion consumer behaviour studies.
