What is New Look made of?

New Look sits in a different lane from the ultra-fast fashion brands. It's a UK high street staple — not as cheap as Boohoo, not as premium as & Other Stories. Mid-range pricing, broad demographic appeal, and a presence on nearly every British high street since 1969. The question is whether that slightly higher price point translates into meaningfully different fabric choices. The answer is: sometimes.

We examined New Look's fabric compositions across their main categories. The picture is more nuanced than the pure-synthetic world of Boohoo Group brands, but it's not the natural-fibre haven some shoppers assume.

A Genuine Mix — But Synthetic Still Leads

New Look uses noticeably more natural fibres than ultra-fast fashion brands like Boohoo, PLT, or Shein. Cotton appears regularly across multiple categories. Linen shows up in summer collections. Viscose is a significant part of the fabric mix. That's genuinely better than brands where polyester accounts for 80% of everything.

But let's not overstate it. Roughly 50-65% of New Look's catalogue still has synthetic fibres as the primary component. Polyester remains the single most-used fabric across the brand. It's in dresses, blouses, activewear, outerwear, and nightwear. The difference is that New Look has more categories where cotton or viscose leads — something you almost never see at the Boohoo Group brands.

Cotton is a real presence. New Look's basics, t-shirts, denim, and casual wear regularly feature cotton as the primary fibre. This is partly because New Look targets a broader age range than Gen Z-focused brands and includes more daywear and workwear in its range. Cotton basics at New Look are genuine cotton, not cotton-polyester blends marketed as cotton.

Viscose plays a larger role here than at most competitors. New Look uses viscose extensively in summer dresses, blouses, and wide-leg trousers. Viscose is wood-pulp-derived, so it's not petroleum-based, and it drapes and breathes better than polyester. However, conventional viscose production is chemically intensive. New Look has committed to sourcing more responsibly-produced viscose, though the timeline and verification of this commitment varies.

Category Breakdown

Here's what the labels tell you across New Look's core range:

• T-shirts & Basics — Cotton leads here, and it's one of New Look's strongest categories for natural fibres. Many basic tees are 100% cotton or cotton-elastane. This is a genuine point of difference from Boohoo Group brands, where even basics are often polyester-heavy. New Look's jersey basics are generally cotton-led.
• Dresses — A split. Casual day dresses often use viscose or cotton. Going-out and occasion dresses lean heavily into polyester. Summer collections feature more natural fibres. Winter collections skew synthetic. It's a category where checking the specific item matters more than making assumptions.
• Blouses & Shirts — A mix of polyester and viscose. Some blouses are 100% polyester, others are viscose-based. Linen and linen-blend shirts appear in spring/summer ranges. The fabric varies significantly within this category — two similar-looking blouses might have completely different compositions.
• Knitwear — Better than ultra-fast fashion but still mixed. New Look offers some genuinely cotton-knit jumpers and cardigans, and some pieces with real wool content. But acrylic knitwear is still prevalent, especially at lower price points within the range. Check each item individually.
• Jeans — Cotton-dominant, as expected. Typically 70-99% cotton with elastane for stretch. New Look's denim is comparable to other high-street brands and consistently cotton-led. This is the safest category for natural fibres.
• Outerwear — Mostly synthetic. Puffer jackets are polyester, faux-fur coats are acrylic or polyester, lightweight jackets vary. Some wool-blend coats exist at higher price points, but polyester-dominant outerwear is the norm.

The takeaway: New Look is genuinely better than ultra-fast fashion for fabric quality, but it's not consistent across categories. You can find good natural-fibre pieces here, but you can also find pure polyester at the same price point. The variation within categories is wide enough that checking individual items is essential.

New Look's Sustainability Commitments

New Look has made more concrete sustainability commitments than many competitors. They've published targets around organic cotton sourcing, responsibly-produced viscose, and reducing virgin polyester. Their "Kind" labelling system attempts to flag products made with more sustainable materials.

Credit where it's due: this is more than most fast fashion brands offer. New Look's targets are more specific than vague pledges, and their reporting is more transparent than brands that simply slap "eco" on a capsule collection.

But there's an important caveat. Targets aren't outcomes. The gap between announcing a commitment and achieving it across an entire supply chain is enormous. And "more sustainable polyester" is still polyester — recycled or not, it still sheds microplastics and still won't biodegrade. Progress is real but should be assessed by what's on the label today, not what a corporate report promises for 2030.

New Look's mid-range position creates an interesting dynamic. They can't race to the bottom on price like Boohoo, so they have to offer something more — better fit, better fabric, more longevity. This commercial pressure actually pushes them toward better materials in ways that pure-price competition doesn't. It's not altruism, it's positioning. But the result is still more cotton, more viscose, and less polyester than their cheaper competitors.

How to Check Before You Buy

New Look lists fabric composition on product pages, and to their credit, it's slightly more accessible than on some competitors. But you still need to click into each product and look for the "Composition" section. When you're browsing twenty items across categories, the friction is real.

This is where Fibr comes in.

Fibr is a free Chrome extension that reads fabric composition and displays it as a colour-coded badge on product images. Green for natural fibres. Yellow for mixed. Red for mostly synthetic. At New Look, where the variation between items is unusually wide, Fibr is especially useful — you can instantly see which pieces in a category are cotton-led and which are polyester-dominant.

New Look support is coming soon. Fibr currently works on Zara, H&M, and Mango, and we're building out support for New Look and other high-street brands. When it launches, browsing New Look with Fibr will let you filter for natural-fibre pieces without manually checking every product page.

Until then, the manual method works: click into the product, find "Composition," and read the label. At New Look, you'll find more pleasant surprises than at Boohoo or PLT — but you'll also find polyester where you didn't expect it. The only way to know is to check.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is New Look sustainable?

Partially. New Look has made more concrete sustainability commitments than ultra-fast fashion brands — targeting organic cotton, responsible viscose sourcing, and reduced virgin polyester. Their "Kind" labelling system flags more sustainable products. However, a significant portion of their catalogue remains synthetic, and targets are not yet fully achieved. New Look is meaningfully better than Boohoo or Shein on fabric, but it's still a high-volume fashion brand with a mixed material profile. Check individual items rather than trusting the brand as a whole.

What fabric does New Look use?

A genuine mix. Polyester is still the single most-used fabric, appearing in dresses, blouses, outerwear, and many trend-led pieces. But cotton features heavily in basics, t-shirts, and denim. Viscose is used extensively in summer dresses and blouses. Linen appears seasonally. Acrylic features in some knitwear. Overall, roughly 50-65% of the range is primarily synthetic and 35-50% is primarily natural or semi-synthetic — a notably better ratio than ultra-fast fashion brands.

Is New Look better quality than Boohoo?

Generally yes, particularly in fabric composition. New Look uses more cotton, more viscose, and more natural fibres across their range. The higher average price point translates to heavier fabrics, better construction, and more cotton basics than Boohoo Group brands. However, quality varies significantly within New Look's range — some pieces are comparable to Boohoo quality, while others are noticeably better. Fabric composition is the most reliable indicator of quality, so check the label on each individual item.