Note: elephantjournal.com received these review items for free, in return for a guarantee that we would review said offering. That said, we say what we want—good and bad, happy and sad.

When I recently shared that I was no longer buying clothing from companies that used sweatshop labor, the London-based company Wellicious approached me and asked if I would be interested in reviewing some of its clothing.

I jumped at the opportunity to do so. I won’t mince words. Finding eco-friendly, ethically-made workout clothing has been challenging. At times, it has been akin to searching for the holy grail.

Based in London and founded in 2007 by yogi, Heike Schnell, Wellicious’s, their approach to business may best be described as “slow fashion”.

The mission statement reads as follows:

Wellicious embraces the yogic philosophy using only sustainable materials, manufacturing and packaging and ensures all of its products are ethically produced in Europe. The company also actively supports the SOS Children’s Village in Peru by donating a percentage of its profits to the charity each season, with each member of staff sponsoring their own child from the orphanage.

Principles aside, the real question for me is: are these clothes any good?

I got the chance to see for myself when I recently received two of their products, the align leggings and dream top.

The leggings—which are 90% organic cotton and 10% elastane—are the best I have ever owned. The density and softness of the fabric makes it clear that these are luxury clothing.  As someone use to wearing mainly synthetic “performance wear fibers”, the cotton is a nice switch. It allows for breathability and there is no dreaded transparency issues like I have seen with cheaper items. Even the most die-hard fans of high tech performance fibers arguing that they allow for better moisture wicking may be swayed by  these leggings.

Also, speaking as a girl with extremely oversized calves, I was happy to find that these did not make my legs feel like sausages enclosed in too-tight casings nor did they stretch out or bag around the ankles even with repeated wearings.

Like its name implies, the dream top is quite stylist. It’s fashionable enough to wear for dinner or a night out after class with or without a light jacket. While I have had troubles in the past with one shoulder tops keeping me covered, this one did not pose any problems. Even though it is not recommended for high impact workouts, I wore it during my morning Ashtanga Mysore practice and didn’t have a single wardrobe malfunction. (Granted, I am fairly small-breasted. The more endowed lady probably would want to save this for a low impact practice while those who are a size D and above would be better off with a top with with more secure built-in bra.)

With prices on par with lululemon and under armour, this is truly a line worth looking at for those who want high performance clothing that don’t cost the earth and more importantly, do not contribute to its demise.

Wellicious currently ships to several countries including most of the EU, the US, and Japan.

 

 

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Editor: Bryonie Wise