Amsterdam Fashion Week is happening right now. Forty shows and presentations across five days, from September 1 to 5, with one notable difference from most fashion weeks around the world: sustainability is not optional.
This year, AFW has implemented the Sustainability Requirements framework developed by Copenhagen Fashion Week (copenhagenfashionweek.com), with approximately 30 brands measured against strict sustainability criteria (brightest.io) covering materials, production, and working conditions. Amsterdam Fashion Week banned fur in 2019, and in May 2025 expanded that policy to ban wildlife skins and feathers from all catwalks, winning the Best Catwalk Moment award at the PETA UK Fashion Awards.
This is the city's fashion week. And it has decided that how clothes are made matters as much as how they look.
That shift is worth paying attention to because it changes the answer to a question people are increasingly asking: what luxury vegan fashion brands actually exist?
Why "luxury" and "vegan" used to seem like opposites
For most of fashion history, luxury meant animal materials. Leather, silk, cashmere, down and fur. The more exclusive the animal product, the higher the price. Luxury was defined partly by the willingness to use materials that were difficult to source and expensive to process, regardless of what was involved in getting them.
That definition is changing. Not because consumers suddenly became sentimental about silkworms, but because the logic has inverted. The brands that now command genuine respect, and genuine prices, are the ones that can back up their claims. That requires craft, transparency, and the willingness to build things properly rather than quickly.
Ethical fashion, done well, is harder to produce than fast fashion. It requires better materials, more careful sourcing, smaller production runs, and relationships with suppliers that take years to build. The brands doing this seriously are, by definition, operating at a higher level than the brands that aren't.
That's what makes sustainable fashion the new luxury. Not the price tag. The intention behind it.
What makes a fashion brand genuinely considered
Before getting to specific brands, it's worth being precise about what "considered" actually means, because the word is used loosely and can be interpreted in different ways.
A brand is genuinely considered when it can answer three questions clearly:
What is the garment made from, and where did that material come from? Not "sustainable fibres" as a category, but specific materials, specific sources, specific certifications. GOTS for organic cotton. FSC-certified wood pulp for lyocell and Tencel. Recycled silver with a documented chain of custody.
Who made it, and under what conditions? Factory names, wage structures, working hours. The brands worth trusting publish this information because they have nothing to hide.
How long is it designed to last? A truly considered garment isn't designed for one season. It's cut and constructed to survive washing, wearing, and time. The cost per wear calculation always favours quality over volume.
This shift in consumer knowledge and desire for transparency comes with a price, especially for smaller brands it requires more effort and investments. There are many smaller brands that are genuinely pushing and trying to do things different, which they should be applauded for, rather than always focussing on what could be even better. As generally when someone is trying we tend to focus on what could be even better, and the big fashion houses that do much less than the individual brands are given less hard criteria to comply with.
With Noumenon we aim to make a difference with our own label and also by giving other brands a platform, as together we can achieve a greater impact.
About the brands
Cossac is a sustainable womenswear brand built around the capsule wardrobe philosophy: designing transeasonal pieces in cupro, linen, and deadstock fabrics intended to be worn across multiple seasons. The aesthetic is contemporary and considered: fluid separates and elevated basics that don't date quickly because they were never designed to follow a trend cycle. This is precisely the kind of brand that the Amsterdam Fashion Week sustainability framework is designed to reward.
By Signe is a Danish label founded by Signe Rødbro that produces honest, feminine easywear using GOTS-certified organic fabrics in her own ethical atelier in Turkey. The in-house production model means complete transparency over wages, working conditions, and material quality; the kind of supply chain visibility that larger brands struggle to offer.
Wildthings Collectables sits at the intersection of craft and character. Designed in Amsterdam, produced entirely by hand in Bali using 100% recycled sterling silver and recycled brass, by craftspeople working under fair conditions with full oversight from the Wildthings team. Amsterdam has been positioning itself as a world leader in eco-conscious design and Wildthings is the jewellery brand that embodies that positioning.
The Noumenon label, our own, is designed in Amsterdam using European-sourced linen, organic cotton, cupro, and Tencel. Every material is chosen for how it performs over time, not how it photographs in a campaign. The name comes from Kantian philosophy: the thing as it truly is, beneath appearances. That's the standard we hold ourselves to.
All of these brands are available at Noumenon, curated specifically because they meet the criteria above.
Amsterdam Fashion Week and the sustainability shift
What's happening at AFW this week matters beyond Amsterdam. This edition marks the second phase of AFW's partnership with Copenhagen Fashion Week, with the Sustainability Requirements framework introduced into the selection process. Brands are being reviewed against minimum standards, with full rollout expected in September 2027.
During the 2026 edition, sustainability is not merely a side topic but a mandatory entry requirement for all featured brands, with approximately 30 or more brands rigorously measured against strict sustainability criteria covering materials, production lines, and working conditions.
This is significant because fashion weeks set cultural direction. When the most influential event in the Benelux makes ethical production a condition of participation, it shifts what the industry considers normal. The brands that have been building responsibly for years, the Cossacs and By Signes of the world are no longer the exception. They're becoming the standard.
That's not a trend. That's a structural change in what fashion means.
A note on what "luxury vegan and sustainable fashion" actually means
The question "what luxury brand is vegan?" assumes that luxury and vegan or sustainable are separate categories that occasionally overlap. The more useful question is: which brands are making the most considered clothing available right now?
The answer to that question increasingly points toward independent, ethically produced labels rather than the traditional luxury houses. Not because the big houses are all bad, some are making genuine progress, but because the independent brands have a structural advantage: they built their businesses around these values from the start. There's no legacy system to retrofit, no shareholders to satisfy with volume targets, no quarterly pressure to cut corners on materials.
The brands we stock at Noumenon aren't luxury in the traditional sense. They're something more durable: independently owned, transparently produced, made from materials we can account for, designed to last longer than a season.
If that's not the new luxury, it's at least a more honest version of it.
Frequently asked questions
- What luxury brands are vegan? Traditional luxury houses vary widely on this. Some, like Stella McCartney, have been entirely vegan since founding. Others have introduced vegan lines while continuing to use animal materials elsewhere.
- Is vegan fashion actually better quality? Quality depends on the brand, not the ethics. But brands that invest in ethical production tend to invest in material quality too partly because their customers care, and partly because durable materials are part of the sustainability proposition. A cupro dress designed to last five years requires better construction than a polyester dress designed to last five wears.
- What is Amsterdam Fashion Week doing for sustainability in 2026? Amsterdam Fashion Week has adopted Copenhagen Fashion Week's Sustainability Requirements framework, with full implementation coming into effect in September 2026. Approximately 30 brands featured in the official show schedule are measured against the Sustainability Framework Requirements.This makes AFW one of the most rigorous fashion weeks in the world on sustainability criteria.
- Where can I shop vegan fashion in Amsterdam? Noumenon is an Amsterdam-based multibrand boutique stocking curated vegan and ethical fashion from independent brands including Cossac, By Signe, Veja, Wildthings Collectables, and the Noumenon own label. All brands are vetted for sustianability credentials, ethical production, and material transparency. Shop online at nou-menon.com or explore the full brand overview.
- Is fast fashion ever vegan? Technically, a polyester garment contains no animal materials and is therefore vegan in a strict sense. But most conscious shoppers use "vegan fashion" to mean something broader: clothing that avoids harm across its entire production chain to animals, to workers, and to the environment. By that definition, fast fashion fails on multiple criteria regardless of the materials used.
In closing
Amsterdam Fashion Week is happening this week, and for the first time, the brands showing have had to demonstrate their sustainability credentials to participate. That's a meaningful shift and it points in a clear direction.
The most considered fashion right now isn't necessarily the most expensive. It's the fashion made by brands that can tell you exactly what it's made from, exactly who made it, and exactly why it will still look good in five years.
That's the new luxury. And it's available without the traditional price tag.
Explore the Noumenon collection: sustainable fashion from independent brands, curated in Amsterdam.
Written by Noumenon · Amsterdam · September 2026
Tags: vegan fashion, luxury vegan brands, Amsterdam Fashion Week, AFW 2026, sustainable fashion Amsterdam, ethical fashion brands, vegan clothing, conscious fashion, cruelty-free fashion
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