Fashion and apparel: what gets made, worn and thrown away

Worldwide

Fibre produced per person, worldwide

Fibre production reached the equivalent of 17 kg per person in 2025, more than double the 8.3 kg per person in 1975, Textile Exchange reports¹.

• Emissions. The Ellen MacArthur Foundation says the global fashion industry produced around 2.1 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions in 2018, 4% of the global total⁶.
• Plastic. Clothing and textiles account for 11% of plastic waste, UNEP says⁷.
• Disposal. Every second, the equivalent of a rubbish truck of clothes is burnt or buried in landfill, according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation⁸.

Europe

Textiles consumed per person in the EU, 2022

Each person in the EU consumed on average 19 kg of textiles in 2022, up from 17 kg in 2019; 8 kg of it was clothing, 7 kg household textiles and 4 kg footwear, the European Environment Agency says⁹.

• Collection. In 2022 the EU's average capture rate for textile waste was just under 15%, meaning 85% of household textile waste was not collected separately and ended up in mixed household waste¹⁰.
• Destroyed unused. An estimated 4-9% of all textile products put on the market in Europe are destroyed before use, between 264,000 and 594,000 tonnes a year, according to the EEA¹¹.
• Exports. EU exports of used textiles nearly tripled from a little over 550,000 tonnes in 2000 to 1.4 million tonnes in 2019, and stayed at 1.4 million tonnes in 2023¹².

Singapore: spending on clothes

Retail sales index, wearing apparel and footwear (2025 = 100)

SingStat's annual retail sales index for wearing apparel and footwear, at current prices, stood at 109.7 in 2023, 103.5 in 2024 and 100 in 2025¹³.

• Latest month. Singapore's wearing apparel and footwear retail sales rose 0.7% year on year in August 2026 at current prices, and 2.3% from July on a seasonally adjusted basis¹⁴.

What the data says

The European Environment Agency says technologies such as the internet of things, artificial intelligence, big data analytics and automation have the potential to transform the textiles industry and how its products are consumed¹⁵.

What companies say

• Virtual try-on. Google says it launched its AI apparel Try On tool in Malaysia in June 2026, letting shoppers upload a full-length photo to see clothes and shoes on themselves, powered by a custom image-generation model for fashion¹⁶.
• Listings. Carousell says AI can write a marketplace listing in three seconds on its recommerce platform¹⁷.

What resale companies report

• Vinted, Europe. The European second-hand marketplace said its 2025 revenue rose 38% to €1.1 billion and gross merchandise value rose 47% to €10.8 billion, while profit fell 19% to €62 million after investment; it cited strong performance in women's and children's clothing¹⁸. In April 2026 it completed an EUR 880 million secondary share sale at an equity valuation of EUR 8 billion, led by EQT, Schroders Capital and Teachers' Venture Growth, raising no new capital for the company¹⁹.
• ThredUp, US. The US-listed resale company reported Q2 2026 revenue of $90.8 million, up 17% year on year, with a record 1.77 million active buyers, up 21%, and a net loss of $5.9 million²⁰.
• Carousell. Carousell Group said its FY25 group revenue rose 18% to US$141 million, with recommerce, its resale-and-trade-in business, growing 40% to become 45% of total revenue, and that it had reached positive EBITDA²¹.

Estimates and forecasts

• Ellen MacArthur Foundation. In 2021 the foundation said resale, rental, repair and remaking were already worth more than USD 73 billion and had the potential to grow from 3.5% of the global fashion market to 23% by 2030, a USD 700 billion opportunity²².
• The Fashion ReModel. Initial findings from the first year of the foundation's Fashion ReModel, based on revenue that participating brands and retailers report confidentially, suggest they are scaling revenue from resale, rental, repair and remaking four times faster than the rest of the participating part of their business²³.
• McKinsey and BoF. McKinsey and The Business of Fashion, consultancy and trade-media authors, forecast in The State of Fashion 2026 that the secondhand fashion and luxury market will grow two to three times faster than the firsthand market through 2027, and that the global fashion industry will post low single-digit growth in 2026²⁴.

Europe and France

1. Mar 2022
   EU, strategy. In March 2022 the European Commission presented an EU strategy for sustainable and circular textiles to make textiles more durable, repairable, reusable and recyclable, tackle fast fashion and stimulate innovation²⁵. A strategy is a plan; the binding measures follow.
2. Oct 2025
   EU, producer responsibility. Directive (EU) 2025/1892, the EU's textile extended producer responsibility law, got Parliament's final approval on 9 September 2025 and entered into force on 16 October 2025; member states have 20 months to transpose it²⁶. Each must set up textile EPR schemes within 30 months of entry into force, making producers pay for collecting, sorting and recycling textiles, including e-commerce sellers based outside the EU, and should address ultra-fast and fast fashion practices when setting producers' fees²⁷.
3. Feb 2026
   EU, Shein. The European Commission opened a Digital Services Act investigation into Shein covering its systems to limit the sale of illegal products, the risks of its addictive design (including points or rewards for engagement) and the transparency of its recommender systems²⁸. It is an investigation, not a finding.
4. Jul 2026
   EU, small parcels. From 1 July 2026 the EU charges an interim flat customs duty of EUR 3 on each category of item in small parcels worth under EUR 150, until 1 July 2028; 4.6 billion such packages entered the EU in 2024 and 91% of small shipments arrive from China, the Council of the EU says²⁹.
5. Jul 2026
   France, eco-contributions. Law no. 2026-602 of 8 July 2026 modulates textile eco-contributions from 1 September 2026 according to the breadth of a producer's range or frequency of new offers and the incentive to repair; where this takes the form of a penalty, it must be between 25 cents and EUR 12 per product in 2026, rising to between EUR 2 and EUR 20 per product from 2030³⁰.
6. Jul 2026
   EU, unsold clothes. Since 19 July 2026 large companies in the EU have been banned from destroying unsold clothes, clothing accessories and footwear under the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation, except in limited cases such as unsafe or damaged items; medium-sized companies follow from 2030 and small and micro businesses are exempt³¹.
7. Jan 2027
   France, advertising. France's official business portal says that from 1 January 2027 the law bans advertising and direct or indirect promotion of ultra-express fashion products, including by influencers, and that ultra-express fashion does not concern the sale of second-hand products³².

Singapore

1. Nov 2025
   No textile EPR yet. Asked in November 2025 whether extended producer responsibility would be extended to textiles and fast fashion, Singapore's environment minister said current EPR focus is e-waste and beverage containers, and that used textiles are not readily recyclable because of their varied materials and fibre blends³³.
2. Sep 2026
   Reuse first. In a written reply on 9 September 2026, the Minister for Sustainability and the Environment said most textiles collected are resold or reused in overseas markets given the lack of local capacity to process textile waste, so efforts focus on reducing textile waste and maximising reuse, including support for organisations such as GreenSquare and The Fashion Pulpit that encourage repair, reuse, swapping and responsible donation³⁴.