The Plants That Could Change How We Think About Sustainable Fashion

Sustainable fashion has a branding problem. Words like natural and eco-friendly are everywhere, yet they often say very little about where materials come from, who produces them, or what ecosystems they depend on. As the industry searches for solutions to its environmental crisis, one question is becoming harder to ignore: what if many of the answers already exist, quietly, in places fashion has long overlooked?

In 2023, fashion activist Carry Somers traveled through Peru, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Mexico to document something rarely centered in mainstream sustainability conversations: the role of plants in textile history and innovation. Supported by a Churchill Fellowship, Somers worked alongside artisans and Indigenous communities to record how local plants have been used for centuries as fibers and natural dyes — not as niche alternatives, but as essential materials embedded in daily life.

The result is A Dictionary of Plant Fibre and Colour, a report published in 2024 that reads less like a trend forecast and more like a reorientation. Rather than proposing a single new “solution fiber,” the work assembles dozens of plant-based materials, each tied to a specific landscape, culture, and method of use. Together, they challenge the idea that sustainability in fashion can be achieved through one-size-fits-all innovation.

What makes this research especially relevant now is the moment it arrives in. The fashion industry is responsible for enormous water consumption, chemical pollution, and microfiber release, even as brands race to market greener collections. Many alternatives still depend on intensive processing, monoculture farming, or globalized supply chains that replicate the same extractive systems they claim to replace. Somers’ work pushes back on that model by highlighting materials designed to work within ecosystems, not override them.

Throughout the report, plants are not presented as raw resources but as living participants in textile systems. Agave, for example, appears as a resilient fiber requiring minimal water and no synthetic chemicals, historically used for rope, bags, and garments across Mesoamerica. Avocado pits and skins, typically discarded as waste, are shown to produce soft pink dyes, transforming food byproducts into color without toxic runoff. In Peru, fibers harvested from the aguaje palm support Indigenous livelihoods while encouraging forest preservation, illustrating how textile production can reinforce, rather than undermine, ecological balance.

This approach reframes sustainability as something deeply local. Instead of scaling materials by stripping them of context, the report emphasizes the importance of regional knowledge and stewardship. The plants documented are sustainable not because they are trendy, but because they have endured, maintained through careful harvesting, cultural transmission, and respect for land.

At its core, A Dictionary of Plant Fibre and Colour argues that fashion’s environmental crisis is also a knowledge crisis. Modern supply chains tend to value speed and uniformity, while overlooking the expertise of communities who have long practiced regenerative, low-impact textile production. By centering those voices, the report asks the industry to reconsider whose knowledge counts as innovation.

For designers, brands, and consumers, the takeaway is not that plant-based textiles are a quick fix. It’s that sustainability demands a shift in mindset. Progress doesn’t only come from labs or new technologies, it also comes from listening, learning, and recognizing systems that have already proven resilient.

As fashion continues to grapple with its impact, this research offers a quiet but powerful reminder: the future of sustainable textiles may not require inventing something entirely new. It may begin by paying closer attention to what has been growing, used, and cared for all along.