DO you ever wonder what happened to that old jumper you threw away last month? Well, if it was a very lucky jumper, it may have been rescued from the inevitable journey to the landfill and ended up in the safe hands of ethical fashion designer Sophie Gorton, who has just launched a range of recycled clothing.

Picking up an old piece of material that has seen better days, the attractive designer, who looks suitably artistic in a paint-splattered apron and much younger than her 44 years, swoons, "I love this hole," before adding: "It may sound corny and a bit try hard, but I see what I do as a bit like those Japanese tea bowls, if there is a crack in it they fill it in with gold and it almost becomes a celebration, and I like that."

Speaking from her Hampstead studio, which is one of a maze of spaces occucpied by artists in the charity-run Kingsgate Workshops & Gallery, she recalls: "I started making my own fabrics out of old jumpers, waste felt and end of line materials about five years ago. There wasn't much out there and I wanted to challenge the aesthetics of sustainable fashion.

"Now I get my materials from the LMB textile recycling network as well. They sort through loads of old clothes that will end up in the waster, and I look through all that stuff and pick out what I want. Then I cut it, remake it and reprint it and make it into something more fun!"

Sophie's passion for injecting new life into old masterpieces began when she was a teenager.

"I grew up in west London, then my parents moved to Wales when I was about 13. I would come back to London whenever I could. A friend and I would spend the weekend on Portobello Road rifling through second hand clothes shops. I'm still a terrible junk shop person and I still love Portobello Road. I always find old garments which I really like, and that's my inspiration."

Sophie's love of fashion eventually led her back to London more permanently and she studied Fine Art at the prestigious Chelsea College of Art & Design.

In 1989 she launched her first fashion label, which was exhibited regularly at London Fashion Week and stocked by many retailers, including Liberty's, Harrods and Selfridges.

"And then I stopped," Sophie tells me, "because it was becoming very difficult to manufacture in England. It was very expensive and not that practical.

"Manufacturing is almost non-existent here now because it has become so much cheaper to do it abroad. I thought I would go back to college, so I did an MA in Textile Futures at St Martins."

On returning to college, Sophie also began getting heavily involved with Fashioning an Ethical Industry (FEI), a subsidiary body of the Labour Behind the Labour campaign, which set her on the path to launching not only her recycled collection, but also a range of fairtrade/organic cotton T-shirts as well.

"I have always paid people fairly and treated people fairly but I got interested in fairtrade and organic materials on a larger scale after getting more involved with the FEI. What it does is inspiring, and being part of a steering group for it got me fired up.

"Fashion and textiles is one of the largest and most polluting industries in the world. Around 20,000 people die each year by production of non-organic cotton, and, of course, there are also a lot of issues around fairtrade as well.

"I suddenly thought this is what I want to develop, but it doesn't make a massive impact other than aesthetically. So I thought I would bring out some organic stuff and get it made in Indian, because getting it produced on a larger scale makes a bigger impact."

Being a fashion designer with a conscience is not the most logical of fits. Cheap labour, size four models and issues of negative body image feature high on people's criticisms of the industry, but Sophie Gorton somehow manages to combine an acute awareness of social responsibility with cutting edge design.

Her organic T-shirts are "designed for women who don't want to look like they are wearing a sack" with sexy bodies and necklines (from £22), while her recycled tanks (£69) are adorned with beautiful bohemian designs.

"I just like dressing women," Sophie exclaims. "My most satisfying customers are often women who are feeling a bit down about themselves and a lot of them really hate shopping, because they are made to feel wrong for not being a size eight or for being too old. I try to do things that flatter, from the way the clothes are cut to the colours. My clothes are all about making women feel good about the way they look."

However, for all her eco efforts on the fashion front, the vivacious designer - who has two daughters, 18-year-old Phoebe and 11-year-old Imogen with her painter husband, Rohan Harris, who has as a stuido in the same workshop as Sophie - admits it is not always easy to stick to the eco bible in day-to-day life.

"I try to eat organic most of the time. I won't by apples from New Zealand for example. I recycle my stuff and I try not to waste too much, but I'm still a Londoner. I don't recycle everything, and just existing is bad for the environment.

"My daughter likes to go to Primark. I tell her and her sister about the issues, but I say to them it's their choice, they have to make up their own minds, I can't be too much of a hypocrite about it."

With her home just a stone's throw from her studio, at least Sophie can't be accused of being environmentally-unfriendly with her daily commute, whereas I shamelessly hop back into my car and try desperately to hide my Primark pumps.

See Sophie Gorton garment at www.sophiegorton.com

2:35pm Thursday 24th July 2008

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