Couture for the Globe

New

s for the activists and agitators manning the barricades at this week's World Trade Organization meeting in Hong Kong: shouting slogans and carrying banners isn't the only way to protest. From encouraging fair trade to using organically grown, sustainable materials, some designers are finding that high ideals don't necessarily detract from high fashion. "Instead of screaming and yelling, get people to vote with their dollars," says Rogan Gregory, designer for Ali Hewson and her rock-star activist husband Bono's new clothing line, Edun. "Get them to spend their money on something that's good for the world." Here are five promising labels for fair-trade fashionistas:

Edun: Hewson and Bono's first foray into fashion features a hip line of casual wear produced by locally owned factories in Tunisia and Peru. While the goal is to replace aid with trade, the bottom line is still exquisite design. "It doesn't matter how well we treat our workers," says designer Gregory. "If people don't like our clothes, they won't buy them."

Katharine E Hamnett: Top U.K. designer Hamnett has dropped her traditional suppliers for manufacturers that guarantee fair wages and benefits for their workers. "People are always talking about 'making poverty history,'" says Hamnett, who will produce an environmentally friendly clothing line next fall. "This delivers."

Linda Loudermilk: Scarves knitted from recycled soda bottles? A skirt made from soybeans? It may seem that this Los Angeles-based designer gets her inspiration from the corner store, but her sensual, feminine gowns and unstructured suits made from sustainable materials such as bamboo-fiber tweed, organic denim and soy silk are anything but pedestrian.

People Tree: Founder Safia Minney, one of ethical fashion's pioneers, got her start 15 years ago in Japan, where the casual-wear line is designed. She's once again breaking new ground with a fair-trade runway show to be held alongside the WTO conference this week, highlighting the viability of producing flattering, affordable clothes without resorting to sweatshop wages.

Caravana: The darling of last May's Sydney fashion week, Australian Cathy Braid employs more than 400 women in a remote mountain village in Pakistan, where she now lives, to make her stunning hand-stitched collection. Braid creates the designs, but the women decide on a fair price for their labor. "You can't work with these women every day, live with them, understand their lives and then pay them unfairly," says Braid. "You just can't."