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Here鈥檚 an ecoriddle for a concerned shopper: A store has two business suits for sale. One is made of renewable bamboo, the other of recycled polyester. Which is greener?

Before you start wrinkling your nose at petroleum-based products, wait a second. Despite the plant origins of the bamboo, the polyester wins hands down, says Pat Slaven, a textile expert at Consumers Union in Yonkers, N.Y., which produces Consumer Reports magazine. 鈥淒on鈥檛 get me wrong,鈥� she says. 鈥淚 love cotton, I love natural fibers, but polyester鈥檚 going to clothe the planet.鈥�

As with organic produce, environmentally friendly garments are becoming easier to find and are coming down in price 鈥� although a buyer can still pay $290 for a pair of organic jeans.
The good news is there are many more ecofriendly options available 鈥� with everyone from Levi鈥檚 to Target and Wal-Mart offering organic or recycled options. The bad news is that a consumer could be forgiven for thinking they need a degree in textile chemistry to sort out the shades of green.

Shoppers now face a wealth of questions that go far beyond 鈥淒oes this make me look fat?鈥� How many pesticides went into growing the material? (Approximately one-third of a pound for a conventional cotton T-shirt.) Does it have to be dry-cleaned? How were the sheep that produced the wool treated? If it鈥檚 made of organic cotton, what kind of dye was used? How far did it have to be shipped before reaching store shelves?

Then there are a variety of new materials 鈥� from bamboo to soy, sasawashi to Tencel 鈥� claiming to be green and charging a premium accordingly.

鈥淚t鈥檚 a huge shift in consciousness,鈥� says Rachel Sarnoff, founder of EcoStiletto, an online magazine for the environmentally concerned. 鈥淓ven the fact that we have so many alternatives 鈥� two years ago, none of it was here. Now it鈥檚 in Nordstrom.鈥�

Organic clothes hit the mainstream
One illustration of growth in ecofriendly clothes can be found in the fact that Wal-Mart purchased 10 million pounds of organic cotton last year. This has caused some concerns from environmentalists who say it may result in a diluting of what it means to be organic. But Todd Copeland of Patagonia, the Ventura, Calif., company that鈥檚 long been recognized as an industry leader in ecofriendly clothes, would ask the naysayers to hang on a moment.

鈥淲e鈥檙e pretty happy that Wal-Mart is now the biggest purchaser of organic cotton [in the US], because Patagonia was for years and years, and we鈥檙e not that big a company,鈥� says Mr. Copeland.

Old material with a new name
This is not to say that 鈥済reenwashing鈥� (making a misleading or unsubstantiated environmental claim about a product) isn鈥檛 rampant. In some cases, experts say, the garments should come with a pair of the emerald spectacles they used in Oz. Ms. Slaven points out that some of the 鈥渘ew鈥� fabrics actually have old names: Chemically processed bamboo, for instance, is virtually identical to viscose rayon. And the process used to manufacture it 鈥� involving acid, disulfides (鈥減retty nasty stuff,鈥� she says), and strong caustic 鈥� isn鈥檛 her idea of environmentally friendly. 鈥淚t鈥檚 pretty outrageous at this point,鈥� says Slaven, who recently testified before the Federal Trade Commission on 鈥淏amboozled by Bamboo.鈥�

鈥淎lmost all the bamboo that鈥檚 on the market is essentially viscose rayon.... Consumers are paying a lot of money for it. It鈥檚 a legitimate manufactured cellulose. But when consumers are paying half again to double [the price for another fabric], that is not a value to a consumer,鈥� she says.

However, both Slaven and Ms. Sarnoff point out that manually manufactured bamboo 鈥� which feels like flax 鈥� doesn鈥檛 deserve to be tarnished with the same label.

Before you give up and start weaving a hair shirt, analysts say it鈥檚 a case of consumers figuring out what they already like to wear and how to take steps to make that greener. The answer is not to throw your old clothes out or fling money at the problem, figuring that the most expensive clothes must be the greenest.

鈥淧ersonally, I shop a lot less,鈥� says Sarnoff. 鈥淚鈥檒l go and look around and realize that there鈥檚 not many things [that] pass my test of things I want to support.鈥� When she does buy, she says that she wants to make sure her dollars go to help companies that are genuinely concerned.

But she acknowledges it can be difficult for consumers of limited budget who want to help the environment and still look stylish at work. 鈥淚 wish there were a green Gap,鈥� she says.
If your clothing budget doesn鈥檛 stretch to paying for high-end fashion 鈥� where ecofriendly is trendy 鈥� just head for the consignment store.

Buying vintage is one of the easiest ways to go greener, says Kristi Wiedemann, of GreenerChoices.org, an environmental website run by Consumers Union. With vintage clothes, there is no additional energy use or pesticides, she explains, since the clothing has already been manufactured and there are no further transportation costs, since the garments are already local.

鈥淭he question is consumption. The greenest shirt is the one you don鈥檛 buy,鈥� says Ms. Wiedemann.

She also cautions against trying to compare different fabrics to try and figure out which one is the greenest. Instead, she says, it makes more sense to consider the spectrum of each cloth: For cotton, for example, the greenest option would be used clothing, then recycled, organic, and finally, conventional.

Part of the challenge is that there is currently no oversight governing manufacturers鈥� claims, explains Jamie Bainbridge, director of textile and product development for Nau, an ecoclothier in Oregon that pledges to use no new oil in its garments and is working to set up a system whereby consumers will be able to trace the wool in its sweaters back to the source.

For example, a manufacturer can make a shirt of organic cotton, but the dye used in it doesn鈥檛 have to be organic at all. 鈥淭hey can say anything they want to right now, because nobody鈥檚 governing them,鈥� says Ms. Bainbridge.

鈥淭he consumer can鈥檛 be as highly educated as they need to be,鈥� adds Bainbridge, a member of an ecological working group that鈥檚 trying to devise ratings that are clear and consistent. They hope to come up with a way to tell consumers how green the garment they鈥榬e buying is.

鈥淲e need to cut out the 鈥榞reenwashing,鈥� and tell the consumer what they鈥檙e really getting,鈥� she says.

鈥淲e have to build a rating system that鈥檚 strong enough 鈥� it needs to be as simple as the LEED system [for green construction],鈥� she adds. 鈥淭hat way a consumer can say, that鈥檚 organic or it鈥檚 not.鈥�

Editor鈥檚 Note: The original version of this article misspelled the name of EcoStiletto. There鈥檚 more to green clothes than organic fabric. In the next story in our series on green clothing, we鈥檒l look at how the cleaning and care of clothing makes more of an impact on the environment than the type of fabric from which it鈥檚 made.