According to the new ‘laws’, everything I’m wearing in this picture is sustainable. No smugness here. Dressing sustainably is a bit like practising safe sex – open to interpretation.

It can be recycled, which sounds great, until you discover it was made in LA. It can be ‘faux’ leather – better for animals, but terrible in terms of CO2 emissions. It can be ‘vintage’ – and only a year old. 

It can be deadstock (made from off-cuts of fabric that used to be jettisoned), or old stock (ie last season), but your buying it may ultimately be fuelling more demand for said stock.

Complicated? It gets more so. In China, they’re making extra plastic bottles so that the fashion industry can greenwash its wares by advertising that they’re made from recycled bottles.

Conversely, things that sound pretty bad, aren’t always. Polyester gets a terrible press, but if you’re wearing old, good quality polyester (not all are equal) that would otherwise have been dumped then, well, OK.

Leather? If you’re a committed vegan there’s probably no such concept in your mind as humanely farmed. So this comes down to personal ethics. But good-quality leather can be almost infinitely repaired, as the awe-inspiringly skilled crew at The Restory will tell you. Look after it and it will look after you.