Most us wake up each morning and reach blindly for the nearest pair of jeans, without so much as a second’s thought as to where they came from or who made them. But as consumers become more eco-conscious, organic cotton and fair trade clothing are on the rise. Is it just a pricey luxury for the well-off or will it become a high street reality?

We all love a bargain. Each season sees us squeezing out of one trend and into another, as high street retailers imitate the latest catwalk looks. But now, high street chains are cottoning on to another trend – the hunger for all things organic. If they can provide shoppers with ecologically-sound garments AND get it right in the fashion stakes, then eco-friendly clothes could be on the verge of becoming an everyday reality.

Not so long ago, eco-clothing was synonymous with hippies and hemp, but a proliferation of websites such as www.howies.co.uk and www.peopletree.co.uk have sprung up to rival designs in high street chains, and challenge our perceptions. These clothes are both hip and affordable, and their reputation is slowly spreading beyond the enclaves of the environmentally-aware, online shopping community.

Back on the high street, at the higher end of the eco-market, Bono and his wife Ali Hewson have collaborated with New York fashion designer Rogan Gregory to create http://www.edun.ie, a label that aims to put the issue of conscious consumerism firmly on the catwalk, with a crucially stylish twist. And the hype surrounding the new range of James jeans is presumably down to the use of organic denim and natural dye rather than the £150 price tag.

With Selfridges, Barneys and Saks Fifth Avenue carrying high-end eco-labels for the upper echelons of fashion-conscious society, high street favourites Topshop, Oasis and even Marks & Spencer are also wising up to shoppers’ demands. Topshop’s flagship Oxford Circus store now houses Fairtrade-certified concessions; Oasis is selling a range of denim and jersey called Future Organic and M&S has pledged that 5% of its cotton will be organic by 2012.

These developments coincide with greater awareness, media campaigns, and the fact that in 2005, cotton became the latest product to get a fair trade certification – it couldn’t have come at a more opportune time. Find out more at www.fairtrade.org.uk.

With cotton being the latest product to get a fair trade certification, it’s no coincidence that these changes are gaining momentum. “Fair trade fashion has arrived on the high street this season, and it’s here to stay,” says Safia Minney, founder of ecological fashion label People Tree. People Tree’s concession in Topshop’s biggest store marks what she describes as “the beginning of a big change in the fashion industry and to the unfair structures that currently have such a detrimental effect on millions of workers”.

Indeed, buying environmentally-friendly fashion is not just about saving the planet; it is also tied up with the lives of the people on this planet. Horror stories of sweat shops, child labour and employee exploitation resonate loud and clear. With as many as 100 million rural households involved in cotton production worldwide, many small-scale farmers in the developing world are at the mercy of volatile market prices. Added to this, thousands of cotton workers are poisoned every year as pesticides and insecticides from cotton fields contaminate water supplies. “For too long cotton farmers have been invisible at the end of long supply chains and at the sharp end of injustice in international trade, and that has to change,” says Harriet Lamb, director of the Fairtrade Foundation.

Channel 4 is not responsible for the content of third party sites. Images courtesy of People Tree and Howies.