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> Today, the average American buys 68 new items of clothing per year. > “You wonder, do people in America have so much money that they can just wear things onc

> Today, the average American buys 68 new items of clothing per year. > “You wonder, do people in America have so much money that they can just wear things once and then throw them away?” I uh… I too would like to know. What scares me is that the use of whatever demographic is causing that average has to be way higher than the actual average, but this feels like it has to be bimodal. And there are lots of these numbers in the news. The "average American" produces an obscene amount of food waste too, far beyond what I feel I actually produce, as best as I can estimate it.

HFguy 5y ago
I don’t believe that the average American buys 68 pieces of clothing a year. I’d like them to share the source of that. The author doesn’t offer one that I saw. TBC, I think wearing something 3-4 times and discarding it is horrible.
- inglor_cz 5y ago
  Where I live, if you enter a random mall, perhaps 1/2 to 2/3rds of the shops sell clothing. And they live somehow and obviously attract enough customers - a cursory look will prove that they aren't empty. There must be people who buy three or four pieces of clothing every week for years.
- smnrchrds 5y ago
  I imagine they are counting everything, e.g. counting each sock as a separate item of clothing. Otherwise, there is no way the AVERAGE is 68 items per year.
  - mint2 5y ago
    Likely does include socks and underwear but the median is probably lower than the avenger age. I’m guessing this is a skewed distribution.
    - smnrchrds 5y ago
      Now thinking about it, children—especially newborns and toddlers—go through clothes fast. They must be skewing the distribution.
- gexla 5y ago
  Book this is extracted from and the passage is here... https://books.google.com.ph/books?id=-4ODDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA3&dq=sixty-eight&f=false#v=onepage&q=sixty-eight&f=false https://books.google.com.ph/books?id=-4ODDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA3&dq=... They don't seem to have a source. Not linked anyways. Sources might be listed at the end of the book. ETA: Ah, they have the "source" in "notes." They are quoting a CEO of a retailer, so I guess they wouldn't ask sources. You would need to "fact-check" the CEO. ;) I suppose you could just skip over all parts of the book which talks about numbers, because it's too much work to track those down to see if they are legit. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/22/rent-the-runway-wants-to-lend-you-your-look https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/22/rent-the-runwa... > According to Jennifer Hyman, the C.E.O. of Rent the Runway, I am not alone. “Every woman has the feeling of opening up her closet and seeing the dozens of dead dresses that she’s worn only once,” she told me recently. Each year, as Hyman is fond of pointing out, the average American buys sixty-eight items of clothing, eighty per cent of which are seldom worn; twenty per cent of what the $2.4-trillion global fashion industry generates is thrown away.
  - pkaye 5y ago
    > According to Jennifer Hyman, the C.E.O. of Rent the Runway, I am not alone. “Every woman has the feeling of opening up her closet and seeing the dozens of dead dresses that she’s worn only once,” she told me recently. Each year, as Hyman is fond of pointing out, the average American buys sixty-eight items of clothing, eighty per cent of which are seldom worn; twenty per cent of what the $2.4-trillion global fashion industry generates is thrown away. So its probably a made up statistic so they can justify their business model of renting clothes.
    - ht_th 5y ago
      On the other hand, if this number also includes socks, underwear, rain wear, winter wear, sports clothing, swim clothing, etc., it might be less absurd. And don't get me started on clothing for young children, of course. Still, when you say "68 items of clothing", most people think pants, blouses, dresses, costumes, and the like. But that's the fun with statistics :-(
- cko 5y ago
  What about 1.5 pieces per week, including underwear? Seems more likely.
  - Kye 5y ago
    I've heard of people who buy new socks and underwear rather than wash them, but I doubt it's common enough to bend the average up.
wolpoli 5y ago
Kids grow out of clothing quickly and would shift the average number of new items up, but even then, I have trouble believing that it would shift it up by that much? Are they counting each socks individually too?
colechristensen 5y ago
A lot of food waste happens in the supply chain before you ever get the chance to buy it which then gets attributed to the whole population. I think there are quite a lot larger sources of waste than food or clothing in our economy where things could be engineered to last a lot longer and be more repairable but aren't so they will be purchased more often. (think heavy things: appliances, vehicles, tools, etc) The most environmentally friendly thing I do is delaying replacing my totaled 12 year old car.
- chii 5y ago
  I think individual action like not buying a new car doesn't really save much in the production process (it saves only on the consumption side, like less gas being used in driving). A car's required raw material is not going to be mined less because a few people decides not to buy a car - the iron ore and plastics are all going to have been mined at scale (thus, the marginal cost of a few more kgs of material is not a lot). The assembly/production line is going to run, costing energy and thus emissions. The car not purchased is going to sit in the lot - waiting for the next buyer. only if a lot of people collectively drop their demand for a car would any real effect occur.
  - vasco 5y ago
    A lot of people are made of individual people.
  - colechristensen 5y ago
    You are assuming car companies always run their assembly lines at maximum capacity regardless of demand and you are wrong. Companies absolutely cut production regularly and have forever, not just in extraordinary circumstances. An example from 2017, long before pandemic complications: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna775956 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna775956
johncessna 5y ago
I'm curious what the source is as well. My growth these days amounts to growing wider and then thinner and I'm old enough to have clothes from both periods so there's no need to get more. So on one hand, 68 articles of is only imaginable if new socks are counted in the equation. As someone with children, however, it actually seems low. Really young children will grow a couple sizes a year. Then you only cycle through an entire wardrobe (summer, fall, winter, spring, bathing suits etc) once every year or two. Eventually they get older but then there's activities, sports uniforms, girl scout uniforms, the latest sports star's jersey or ball cap, and otherwise start to care what they're wearing and want to be part of that decision making process. So yes, while it's fun to paint Americans as waste engines who throw away clothes because they can't be bothered to wash them or wouldn't dare to be caught dead in something that's already been worn, I think the truth may be a little less sensational than that.
- collegeburner 5y ago
  Thaats why hand me down clothes are a thing. Its most of what I wore, and my friends, and my siblings.
dexwiz 5y ago
Living with my girlfriend really opened my eyes to how many clothes women go through. She even tries to be responsible about it and sell items to second hand markets, but I still think it’s a bit crazy. - Women’s fashion cycles much faster then men’s. Office wear is a bit more stable but anything aimed as social settings like weddings may only provide a few opportunities to wear it before it’s out of style. Men can reliably wear a suit for years, but most dresses get only one or two wears. - Women’s clothes have a much narrower size range. I can gain/lose up to 20lbs and still be in a similar size range. 10lbs for a women means most of her wardrobe no longer fits. Most mens clothes come in 4, maybe 5 sizes. Most womens have at least 6, maybe 8 or even 10 subdivisions. Most sizes are even numbers, so you might find an 8 or a 10, but at smaller sizes you may find 3s and 5s. - Womens cloths just seem to be flimsier. Delicate fabricates and stitching mean they tear easier. Jeans have high elastic content so they wear our faster. Leggings rip easily. Knits are harder to care for than fleece or sweats. I’m not trying to justify it, but I think many men, especially those who frequent this forum, probably have closets full of clothes that are 5 or 10 years old. Guys can wear a shirt for years to the point it’s vintage. If a woman does that, she will very often get judged by her peers.
- gsinclair 5y ago
  > If a woman does that, she will very often get judged by her peers. True. We all reach an age eventually where we care little for the opinions of our peers on such matters. Wisest are those who make that realisation earlier rather than later!
  - SkeuomorphicBee 5y ago
    That would limit career prospects in many fields.
    - t-writescode 5y ago
      So how do we tackle that, because that's bullshit.
    - esarbe 5y ago
MattGaiser 5y ago
Some of my female relatives truly believe that no outfit should be worn twice, even for men. A piece might be worn a few times with different things, but never the same thing twice. They have even criticized me for wearing the same tie two says in a row or not refreshing my t-shirt colours regularly. And I should have two suits in case I go to a two day event.
- lliamander 5y ago
  Much of the men's style stuff I see is about trying to find high-quality, neutral articles that can be worn over and over again, and in different contexts. They talk about things like "cost per wear" and "capsule wardrobes" and the like. I couldn't imagine throwing out some of my favorite pants, shirts, or jackets until they were beyond repair.
  - thirdsun 5y ago
    Yeah, seems insane to me. When I find a piece I like I often buy it in multiple colors. Best of both worlds: Same great clothing and still some variation.
- vidarh 5y ago
  Meanwhile my most recent clothes purchase was 6 identical plain black t-shirts. I'd drive your relatives crazy.
  - ejb999 5y ago
    >>Meanwhile my most recent clothes purchase was 6 identical plain black t-shirts. I do slightly better, find a shirt I like, then buy identical set in 5 colors, and I am all set until next years shopping 'spree' of $60 (5x$12)
    - vidarh 5y ago
      I do try to use a few more colours, but black is my default "I can't be bothered to think about clothes today" colour... But absolutely for buying identical sets. I'm never ever again just buying one of something when I find something I really like, because I hate shopping for clothes, so whenever I decide I like something I go back and buy several more.
Aerroon 5y ago
The answer is "yes". This is part of what makes America (and the rest of the world) so rich compared to the past. A while ago I was looking to buy a small knife for the kitchen and I found a whole pack of them. The average cost of each knife was 60 cents. The meal you prepare with that knife is going to cost more than the knife itself. That just blew me away. Imagine showing this kind of wealth to somebody from the medieval period. Food waste is fine though. It's a side effect of food being incredibly abundant. It is the only realistic mechanism to fight hunger. You want food to be so cheap and so readily available that people are willing to easily write it off.
- chii 5y ago
  > Imagine showing this kind of wealth to somebody from the medieval period. modern industrial production is mind bogglingly large scale. It required over 200 years of continuous investment (in aggregate) to achieve, however, so it was not cheap. And we reap that progress today.
  - inglor_cz 5y ago
    It also required a lot of customers. An 8-billion mankind produces much more demand for things than a 1-billion one.
- dustymcp 5y ago
  Well the issue with that is overproduction and saturation of the soils its grown in, to the massive amount of nutrients going into the groundwater except for those things over production is good /s
  - vasco 5y ago
    What is your argument? The person you replied to explained why this is necessary while we don't have more sophisticated supply chains to prevent hunger. Would you prefer more people die of hunger to not saturate some grounds?
bryanp2021 5y ago
I recognized that ecommerce makes life "easier" and can make people shopping addiction. I can tell it's amazon. It's so easy to buy , it's so easy to return thing I don't like, it's so easy to find cheap things... There is a voice inside my mind, "hey you can buy this doesn't cost much and let's save up later." Well I'm not an addiction but that voice actually came up in my mind, and I spent a bulk of $ I can't tell you what I bought. The good news is that I still use some clothes I bought 3 or 4 years ago. I feel guilty but I know they have been my best friends...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

HFguy 5y ago

I don’t believe that the average American buys 68 pieces of clothing a year. I’d like them to share the source of that. The author doesn’t offer one that I saw. TBC, I think wearing something 3-4 times and discarding it is horrible.

inglor_cz 5y ago
Where I live, if you enter a random mall, perhaps 1/2 to 2/3rds of the shops sell clothing. And they live somehow and obviously attract enough customers - a cursory look will prove that they aren't empty. There must be people who buy three or four pieces of clothing every week for years.
smnrchrds 5y ago
I imagine they are counting everything, e.g. counting each sock as a separate item of clothing. Otherwise, there is no way the AVERAGE is 68 items per year.
- mint2 5y ago
  Likely does include socks and underwear but the median is probably lower than the avenger age. I’m guessing this is a skewed distribution.
  - smnrchrds 5y ago
    Now thinking about it, children—especially newborns and toddlers—go through clothes fast. They must be skewing the distribution.
gexla 5y ago
Book this is extracted from and the passage is here... https://books.google.com.ph/books?id=-4ODDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA3&dq=sixty-eight&f=false#v=onepage&q=sixty-eight&f=false https://books.google.com.ph/books?id=-4ODDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA3&dq=... They don't seem to have a source. Not linked anyways. Sources might be listed at the end of the book. ETA: Ah, they have the "source" in "notes." They are quoting a CEO of a retailer, so I guess they wouldn't ask sources. You would need to "fact-check" the CEO. ;) I suppose you could just skip over all parts of the book which talks about numbers, because it's too much work to track those down to see if they are legit. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/22/rent-the-runway-wants-to-lend-you-your-look https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/22/rent-the-runwa... > According to Jennifer Hyman, the C.E.O. of Rent the Runway, I am not alone. “Every woman has the feeling of opening up her closet and seeing the dozens of dead dresses that she’s worn only once,” she told me recently. Each year, as Hyman is fond of pointing out, the average American buys sixty-eight items of clothing, eighty per cent of which are seldom worn; twenty per cent of what the $2.4-trillion global fashion industry generates is thrown away.
- pkaye 5y ago
  > According to Jennifer Hyman, the C.E.O. of Rent the Runway, I am not alone. “Every woman has the feeling of opening up her closet and seeing the dozens of dead dresses that she’s worn only once,” she told me recently. Each year, as Hyman is fond of pointing out, the average American buys sixty-eight items of clothing, eighty per cent of which are seldom worn; twenty per cent of what the $2.4-trillion global fashion industry generates is thrown away. So its probably a made up statistic so they can justify their business model of renting clothes.
  - ht_th 5y ago
    On the other hand, if this number also includes socks, underwear, rain wear, winter wear, sports clothing, swim clothing, etc., it might be less absurd. And don't get me started on clothing for young children, of course. Still, when you say "68 items of clothing", most people think pants, blouses, dresses, costumes, and the like. But that's the fun with statistics :-(
cko 5y ago
What about 1.5 pieces per week, including underwear? Seems more likely.
- Kye 5y ago
  I've heard of people who buy new socks and underwear rather than wash them, but I doubt it's common enough to bend the average up.

wolpoli 5y ago

Kids grow out of clothing quickly and would shift the average number of new items up, but even then, I have trouble believing that it would shift it up by that much? Are they counting each socks individually too?

colechristensen 5y ago

A lot of food waste happens in the supply chain before you ever get the chance to buy it which then gets attributed to the whole population. I think there are quite a lot larger sources of waste than food or clothing in our economy where things could be engineered to last a lot longer and be more repairable but aren't so they will be purchased more often. (think heavy things: appliances, vehicles, tools, etc) The most environmentally friendly thing I do is delaying replacing my totaled 12 year old car.

chii 5y ago
I think individual action like not buying a new car doesn't really save much in the production process (it saves only on the consumption side, like less gas being used in driving). A car's required raw material is not going to be mined less because a few people decides not to buy a car - the iron ore and plastics are all going to have been mined at scale (thus, the marginal cost of a few more kgs of material is not a lot). The assembly/production line is going to run, costing energy and thus emissions. The car not purchased is going to sit in the lot - waiting for the next buyer. only if a lot of people collectively drop their demand for a car would any real effect occur.
- vasco 5y ago
  A lot of people are made of individual people.
- colechristensen 5y ago
  You are assuming car companies always run their assembly lines at maximum capacity regardless of demand and you are wrong. Companies absolutely cut production regularly and have forever, not just in extraordinary circumstances. An example from 2017, long before pandemic complications: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna775956 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna775956

johncessna 5y ago

I'm curious what the source is as well. My growth these days amounts to growing wider and then thinner and I'm old enough to have clothes from both periods so there's no need to get more. So on one hand, 68 articles of is only imaginable if new socks are counted in the equation. As someone with children, however, it actually seems low. Really young children will grow a couple sizes a year. Then you only cycle through an entire wardrobe (summer, fall, winter, spring, bathing suits etc) once every year or two. Eventually they get older but then there's activities, sports uniforms, girl scout uniforms, the latest sports star's jersey or ball cap, and otherwise start to care what they're wearing and want to be part of that decision making process. So yes, while it's fun to paint Americans as waste engines who throw away clothes because they can't be bothered to wash them or wouldn't dare to be caught dead in something that's already been worn, I think the truth may be a little less sensational than that.

collegeburner 5y ago
Thaats why hand me down clothes are a thing. Its most of what I wore, and my friends, and my siblings.

dexwiz 5y ago

Living with my girlfriend really opened my eyes to how many clothes women go through. She even tries to be responsible about it and sell items to second hand markets, but I still think it’s a bit crazy. - Women’s fashion cycles much faster then men’s. Office wear is a bit more stable but anything aimed as social settings like weddings may only provide a few opportunities to wear it before it’s out of style. Men can reliably wear a suit for years, but most dresses get only one or two wears. - Women’s clothes have a much narrower size range. I can gain/lose up to 20lbs and still be in a similar size range. 10lbs for a women means most of her wardrobe no longer fits. Most mens clothes come in 4, maybe 5 sizes. Most womens have at least 6, maybe 8 or even 10 subdivisions. Most sizes are even numbers, so you might find an 8 or a 10, but at smaller sizes you may find 3s and 5s. - Womens cloths just seem to be flimsier. Delicate fabricates and stitching mean they tear easier. Jeans have high elastic content so they wear our faster. Leggings rip easily. Knits are harder to care for than fleece or sweats. I’m not trying to justify it, but I think many men, especially those who frequent this forum, probably have closets full of clothes that are 5 or 10 years old. Guys can wear a shirt for years to the point it’s vintage. If a woman does that, she will very often get judged by her peers.

gsinclair 5y ago
> If a woman does that, she will very often get judged by her peers. True. We all reach an age eventually where we care little for the opinions of our peers on such matters. Wisest are those who make that realisation earlier rather than later!
- SkeuomorphicBee 5y ago
  That would limit career prospects in many fields.
  - t-writescode 5y ago
    So how do we tackle that, because that's bullshit.
  - esarbe 5y ago

MattGaiser 5y ago

Some of my female relatives truly believe that no outfit should be worn twice, even for men. A piece might be worn a few times with different things, but never the same thing twice. They have even criticized me for wearing the same tie two says in a row or not refreshing my t-shirt colours regularly. And I should have two suits in case I go to a two day event.

lliamander 5y ago
Much of the men's style stuff I see is about trying to find high-quality, neutral articles that can be worn over and over again, and in different contexts. They talk about things like "cost per wear" and "capsule wardrobes" and the like. I couldn't imagine throwing out some of my favorite pants, shirts, or jackets until they were beyond repair.
- thirdsun 5y ago
  Yeah, seems insane to me. When I find a piece I like I often buy it in multiple colors. Best of both worlds: Same great clothing and still some variation.
vidarh 5y ago
Meanwhile my most recent clothes purchase was 6 identical plain black t-shirts. I'd drive your relatives crazy.
- ejb999 5y ago
  >>Meanwhile my most recent clothes purchase was 6 identical plain black t-shirts. I do slightly better, find a shirt I like, then buy identical set in 5 colors, and I am all set until next years shopping 'spree' of $60 (5x$12)
  - vidarh 5y ago
    I do try to use a few more colours, but black is my default "I can't be bothered to think about clothes today" colour... But absolutely for buying identical sets. I'm never ever again just buying one of something when I find something I really like, because I hate shopping for clothes, so whenever I decide I like something I go back and buy several more.

Aerroon 5y ago

The answer is "yes". This is part of what makes America (and the rest of the world) so rich compared to the past. A while ago I was looking to buy a small knife for the kitchen and I found a whole pack of them. The average cost of each knife was 60 cents. The meal you prepare with that knife is going to cost more than the knife itself. That just blew me away. Imagine showing this kind of wealth to somebody from the medieval period. Food waste is fine though. It's a side effect of food being incredibly abundant. It is the only realistic mechanism to fight hunger. You want food to be so cheap and so readily available that people are willing to easily write it off.

chii 5y ago
> Imagine showing this kind of wealth to somebody from the medieval period. modern industrial production is mind bogglingly large scale. It required over 200 years of continuous investment (in aggregate) to achieve, however, so it was not cheap. And we reap that progress today.
- inglor_cz 5y ago
  It also required a lot of customers. An 8-billion mankind produces much more demand for things than a 1-billion one.
dustymcp 5y ago
Well the issue with that is overproduction and saturation of the soils its grown in, to the massive amount of nutrients going into the groundwater except for those things over production is good /s
- vasco 5y ago
  What is your argument? The person you replied to explained why this is necessary while we don't have more sophisticated supply chains to prevent hunger. Would you prefer more people die of hunger to not saturate some grounds?

bryanp2021 5y ago

I recognized that ecommerce makes life "easier" and can make people shopping addiction. I can tell it's amazon. It's so easy to buy , it's so easy to return thing I don't like, it's so easy to find cheap things... There is a voice inside my mind, "hey you can buy this doesn't cost much and let's save up later." Well I'm not an addiction but that voice actually came up in my mind, and I spent a bulk of $ I can't tell you what I bought. The good news is that I still use some clothes I bought 3 or 4 years ago. I feel guilty but I know they have been my best friends...

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]