Fashion’s Complicated Poly Relationship

Reported by Vogue.

Fakemink, the cult British rapper, made headlines earlier this year when he told British Vogue he refuses to wear polyester — full stop. "I don't think anyone should be wearing polyester," he said, crediting his mother, a former luxury retail assistant and occasional stylist, for steering him toward natural fabrics. When his comments went viral, he doubled down on X: cotton, denim, wool, cashmere only. The linen lobby may have opinions, but his stance landed because it crystallized something already simmering in the culture: polyester has become fashion's most argued-over fabric.

The backlash is loud, but the data tells a different story, according to Vogue. Up to 69% of all materials produced for the fashion industry are synthetic, driven by fast fashion's relentless pace. And luxury isn't exempt — polyester-heavy pieces appeared on multiple Fall/Winter 2026 runways, while the No Kill Magazine Luxury Loves Polyester campaign called out a $7,000 Gucci dress, a $5,150 Balmain piece, and a $2,470 Miu Miu design, all containing the fiber. "There is nothing luxurious in knowingly using materials that do harm to both people and the planet," says Katya Moorman, the magazine's editor and a Pratt Institute associate professor. "It's grotesque." Meanwhile, Raffaella Scimeca, CMO of Italian manufacturing group Gruppo Florence, observes that the debate on social media tends to be reductive — natural fabrics coded as virtuous, synthetics as sinful — when the reality is considerably more complicated.

Not All Poly Is a Ploy

Polyester's history is longer and stranger than its current reputation suggests. First sold in New York boutiques in the early 1950s under the name Dacron, it was marketed as a miracle fabric — wrinkle-proof, colorfast, indestructible. By the 1970s it had become a punchline. Then performance wear rescued it: textile expert Mary Ellen Smith brought brushed polyester to Patagonia as PolarFleece, and later, moisture-wicking microfiber polyester powered Nike's Dri-Fit line. Suddenly polyester meant performance, and that halo effect made it palatable far beyond the gym. The environmental cost arrived quietly: the fiber now accounts for 43% of CO2e emissions from fiber production, sheds microplastics with every wash, and never biodegrades. Moorman adds that the chemicals involved in its manufacture are frequently toxic and discharged into waterways with minimal treatment.

Still, designers argue — not unconvincingly — that polyester is sometimes irreplaceable. It's water-resistant, shape-retaining, and quick-drying in ways natural fibers simply aren't. Issey Miyake's Pleats Please line depends entirely on polyester: heat is applied post-construction to permanently set the brand's signature concertina folds, impossible to replicate in linen or cotton. Vincenzo Cangioli, president of Prato-based Lanificio Cangioli 1859, notes that "certain aesthetic and structural effects are extremely difficult to achieve with natural fibers alone." Premium polyester also exists — Miyake sources from Japanese manufacturer Toray; Mirror Palais has pushed back against critics by pointing out that microfiber poly can be softer and more durable than its cheap counterpart. Not all synthetics are created equal, even if Instagram comment sections treat them that way.

What's harder to defend is the opacity. Terms like satin, tulle, and lamé describe weave structures, not fibers — meaning a brand can technically avoid lying while allowing consumers to assume silk. "Technical" fabrications are almost universally plastic. The real issue isn't polyester's existence; it's the industry's habit of obscuring it from everyone except the people reading care labels with a magnifying glass.

Fashion's polyester problem is less about the fiber itself and more about who gets to decide when using it is innovation versus exploitation.

Read the original at Vogue.