Designers are looking to forests for clothing ideas. They are moving away from old-fashioned materials like cotton, silk or leather. Forests have a lot to offer. Yarns from cypress, beech and eucalyptus trees, not to mention cork, are softer and more breathable than cotton or silk. Fabrics similar to animal skins can instead come from hardwoods and conifers.

Fashion students in Italy have been creating a collection of clothing and accessories made entirely from wood and wood-based products. Large and globally recognized fashion brands are working to change their supply chain to avoid endangering forests. The world's largest apparel makers are removing endangered and ancient forests from their dissolvable pulp supply chain for their viscose and rayon fabrics. They are giving themselves three years to find alternative sources, including straw and recycled fabrics.

Around 30 per cent of the rayon and viscose going into clothing comes from dissolvable pulp sourced from endangered and ancient forests. Manmade cellulosic fabrics like rayon, viscose and lyocell are created from trees cut down exclusively to feed dissolving pulp mills.

Forest-based fabrics represent five per cent of the global apparel industry and that number is poised to grow. Demand for dissolving pulp is projected to double in the next 20 years and is increasing at a nine per cent rate annually.