The U.S. secondhand clothing (resale) market is expanding at about 9% per year and is projected to reach $74 billion by 2029. ThredUp's 2025 Resale Report offers this assessment and notes that more and more American shoppers, including older consumers, are actively seeking secondhand and sustainable products. Meanwhile, the Council for Textile Recycling estimates that the average American throws away more than 70 pounds of clothing and other textiles each year; UN Environment Programme data shows that every second, the equivalent of one garbage truck's worth of textiles is landfilled or burned worldwide.

Key Points

  • ThredUp 2025 Resale Report: The U.S. secondhand clothing market grows about 9% annually and is expected to reach $74 billion by 2029.
  • The Council for Textile Recycling estimates that Americans discard more than 70 pounds of clothing and other textiles per person per year.
  • The UN Environment Programme says one garbage truck's worth of textiles is landfilled or burned every second globally.

Against this backdrop of growth, services built around secondhand clothing are becoming more specialized. Stephanie Hernandez, a secondhand stylist in Washington, D.C., has turned thrifting into a career, with clients paying her to help build a one-of-a-kind, sustainable wardrobe. She has observed that many people want to shop more responsibly but cannot spare the time to comb through thrift stores item by item. "They want to be more sustainable, they're thinking about it more, but they really don't have the time to go to thrift stores and find those good pieces," she said.

What also drew her into the field was the visceral impact of textile waste. "I feel like there's just too much stuff in the world, and buying new just creates more and more trash," she said. She mentioned feeling heartbroken after seeing videos of clothes washing up on beaches after crossing the ocean, which prompted her to start her business to educate people and show them there are other options. In her service process, a new client's first lesson is not shopping in stores but organizing their own closet—restyling existing garments into complete outfits and giving old clothes new life.

Secondhand and sustainable fashion has also entered university classrooms. Mikki Taylor, a fashion design professor at Howard University's Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts, teaches a sustainable fashion course and emphasizes the environmental cost of consumption choices. She has students examine their own closets, buying habits, and consumption patterns in class, and tells them about the various chemicals involved behind a T-shirt or a pair of jeans. "It's extremely important to teach them this because our environment is really being affected," she said.

For those new to secondhand shopping, Taylor's advice is to just try: first see how much you already own and what can be altered or redesigned, then start with one sturdy basic piece and build around it.

From an industry perspective, this trend means both supply and demand for U.S. secondhand clothing are expanding at the same time: on one end, the potential source of goods formed by the tens of pounds of textiles discarded each year; on the other, consumers willing to pay for a sustainable wardrobe and increasingly segmented service roles.

Source: Secondhand shopping surge: More Americans are buying used clothing · Originally published 2026-10-02