There has been a lot of edie news about sustainable fashion recently. Here's my confession: I buy fair trade tea and coffee, I don't use carrier bags, I try to eat only fish from sustainable fish stocks but my jeans are from TopShop and ASOS.

I AM signed up for a newsletter from a sustainable fashion website, in the hope that they might have a sale and I can get some guilt free shopping done. An email from them today informed me that they have jeans in stock for £50.

Now I might occasionally be tempted to spend £50 on one item of clothing. But that item will have to have something special about it. It might be a silk top, a pair of jeans which are designer, or something which is, as Gok Wan might say 'bang on trend.' It has to be beautiful, worth people commenting on and something I will wear out in the evening, not just sitting at my desk at work.

These jeans, I'm sorry to say, are none of the above. They are plain and pretty average looking. I might wear them to work. Surely someone could manufacture some jeans that look good for the same price? There are sustainable fashion shows going on all over the place, we need some of this fresh young design talant to get to work on making these expensive FairTrade, Made in Britain jeans look a bit trendier. Then I might think about spending £50 on them.

There is another way to get ethical with your fashion though - go retro. Fashion doesn't have to mean cheap and expendable, there is a growing demand for wearing older clothes, marked by all the vintage sale invitations in my email inbox, and the number of my friends increasingly willing to raid their mums' old wardrobes for something to wear on a night out. (Hey, that's where I got my dress for last year's Awards For Environmental Excellence.) This is a trend I can get on board with. There is nothing cooler than finding an 80s outfit in a charity shop, it's cheaper than buying an 80s style outfit from TopShop and you know you won't turn up at a party wearing the same thing as two of your mates.