Fast fashion in the slow lane: Secondhand market set to dominate by 2030

With more people turning to secondhand apparel in an effort to cut fast fashion out of their lives, the US pre-loved clothing market is expected to grow to twice the size of the fast fashion industry by 2030, a new report estimates. American resale marketplace ThredUP said in its latest annual resale report that 33 million consumers bought secondhand clothing for the first time in 2020, 76 per cent of whom plan to increase their spending on pre-owned items in the next five years. This year’s study by ThredUP found that the average thrift shopper bought around seven secondhand items in the past year that they would normally have bought new, displacing more than 542 million new clothing items. Consumers are refreshing their closets and turning to resale as a way to sustainably discard garments and acquire new ones Joe Metcalfe, founder of Thrift Plus, told The Independent that the resale market in the UK is This growth was “fuelled by wardrobe clear-outs, rising concern about the environmental impact of fashion, and a continuing desire to support charities through clothing resale”. “While 70 per cent of our customers say that less than half of their ‘new’ clothes are second-hand, 60 per cent would like this figure to be more than half.” This showed “clear intent” among consumers to shop more secondhand apparel rather than new, said Metcalfe, whose platform aims to accelerate the adoption of circular fashion and be “the engine of the resale economy in the UK”.