Is Emmiol Fast Fashion? Brand Analysis + Alternatives

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Emmiol is a new retailer on the scene, founded only in 2020, and the brand has grown in popularity thanks to its budget friendly clothes and keeping up with the latest trends.

Although Emmiol touts a sustainability plan and has launched its ‘Green Day’ every month, we’re asking, “Is Emmiol Fast Fashion?.” In this article, we’ll analyze the brand’s information and see whether the brand is making a change or whether the brand is greenwashing.

Let’s jump in.

Yes, Emmiol is a Fast Fashion Brand. Despite the brand’s efforts to greenwash its customers into believing it is committed to sustainability, we think that Emmiol is a fast fashion brand, and here’s why.

The brand sells its clothing for low prices, with tops selling for lower than $10. The problem with selling clothes for cheap is that it raises questions about whether the people making the clothes are paid a living wage. Plus, selling clothes for low prices and having regular flash sales are tactics that brands use to encourage customers to buy more items. Unfortunately, more items and overconsumption of clothing mean more waste and carbon emissions.

Secondly, Emmiol has thousands of styles of clothing available to buy. While the brand says it holds a limited amount of stock to prevent waste, the fact that it currently has over four thousand women’s styles doesn’t exactly scream slow fashion to us.

Lastly, while combing through Emmiol reviews, we found hundreds of terrible reviews mentioning low-quality clothing and poor customer service. Low quality is one of the main reasons we’re throwing away our clothing more than ever – with over three hundred thousand tonnes of clothing ending up in household bins in the UK every year.

Screenshot showing Emmiol poor reviews from trust pilot

Despite Emmiol’s apparent greenwashing claims that it’s expanding its sustainable fibers to include hemp, linen, and recycled cotton, we weren’t impressed at the brand’s transparency around its materials. We searched for these ‘sustainable fibers’ on the brand website and unfortunately found very few products containing said fibers.

Screenshot from Emmiol website showing no results for recycled cotton

On the other hand, we did find thousands of styles made with unsustainable fibers like cotton and polyester. A simple search on their website shows over three thousand styles are made with polyester (with no mention of whether recycled polyester is used).

Polyester seriously damages the environment; it relies on crude oil to produce and requires large amounts of energy to create. Plus, polyester isn’t biodegradable as it’s plastic, so it will hang around for thousands of years.

No, Emmiol isn’t a verified carbon-neutral brand and doesn’t publish transparent figures for its carbon emissions. The brand claims on its website that it is offsetting carbon through tree planting to become carbon neutral – however, unless backed up with transparent data, we cannot tell if the brand is actually carbon neutral.

We’d like to see the brand publishing its Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions and give its customers an update on how it plans on becoming carbon neutral to back up its claims.

No, we wouldn’t consider Emmiol to be an ethical brand because we feel they don’t provide enough transparent information.

The brand doesn’t have a readable code of conduct that its suppliers must follow, and they also don’t specify whether workers in its supply chain are paid a living wage.

On top of that, the brand says that the criteria for its sourcing partners must include a tier 1 transparency list, but they need to look past Tier 1 suppliers to truly be ethical.

Unfortunately, the fashion industry is notoriously exploitative for workers in supply chains, and we need to have transparent information or transparency of where the brand is sourcing its clothes to know whether the brand is using ethical labor.

The brand doesn’t indicate whether its factories are certified or whether they visit the factories to audit and check the working conditions.

Unfortunately, Emmiol doesn’t provide transparent information about where its clothes are made, which is a major red flag for us.

Again, you may be unsurprised to know that Emmiol doesn’t have any transparent information about its animal welfare policy. For example, the brand doesn’t use leather or fur on its website, but we can’t verify whether the brand uses any animal-based glues or other animal-derived materials.

No, Emmiol doesn’t have a clothing recycled program.

Is Emmiol Fast Fashion graphic
Overall we give Emmiol a sustainability rating of 0.5/5.
While the brand is donating money to tree planting (only one day per month) and say’s they’re using more sustainable materials, we see absolutely no proof that the brand is taking serious steps to become what we would consider a sustainable brand.
In addition, we found the lack of transparency from the brand around its code of conduct and suppliers was extremely poor.

What we liked:

❌ Unfortunately, we didn’t find anything we liked and thought the brand was sending strong greenwashing messages.

What we didn’t like:

❌ The lack of transparency around where its clothes are made.

❌ Emmiol does not indicate whether it audits its suppliers or has full supply chain traceability.

❌ Limited use of sustainable materials.

❌ Major Greenwashing Vibes.

Rather than shop from a fast fashion brand like Emmiol, there are a ton of great affordable, sustainable fashion brands out there that are creating cool styles without harming people or the planet.

Below, we’ve picked out our favorite sustainable and ethical alternatives to Emmiol.

1. Kotn

Kotn Womens long sleeve organic cotton tshirt

Sustainability: Ethical clothing brand with a minimalist style using responsibly sourced cotton.

Ecothes rating: 4/5

Best for: Streetwear

Ships to: Worldwide

Kotn affordable business casual workwear

2. Afends

Afends alternatives to Emmiol

Sustainability: Y2K and Gen-Z clothing brand using sustainable materials like hemp, organic cotton, and linen

Best for: Dresses, tops

Ships to: Worldwide

Afends sustainable fashion alternative to Emmiol

3. Colorful Standard

Colorful Standard alternative to Emmiol

Sustainability: Brand creating organic cotton essentials ethically from GOTS-certified organic cotton

Best for: t-shirts, hoodies, sweats

Ships to: Worldwide

Colorful Standard best ethical basics for women and men

4. Lucy & Yak

Sustainability: Sustainable fashion brand creating organic and ethical clothing from organic cotton and recycled materials

Best for: Dungarees, Denim

Ships to: Worldwide

Lucy and Yak

5. Plant Faced Clothing

Plant Faced Clothing

Sustainability: Vegan clothing brand creating clothes from organic cotton and recycled polyester

Best for: t-shirts, hoodies

Ships to: Worldwide

Plant faced clothing sustainable clothing alternatives for fast fashion brands to avoid

Overall, yes Emmiol is a fast Fashion brand in our book. If you’re surprised by this brand rating and want to find out if other brands are also fast fashion, check out our guide on the worst fast fashion brands!

Plus, you can check out a whole range of brand ratings like Target, Express, Missguided, I Saw it First, and more!

Bethany
Bethany

Bethany Worthington BSc (Hons) (she/her) is the Sustainable Fashion Editor and Co-founder of Ecothes. She has a passion for the environment, and a long love of all things clothing, and combines those two interests with Ecothes. In her free time she loves dancing, hiking in the countryside, and laughing with friends.

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