Key Points

  • Secondhand clothing sales in the US are growing at nearly four times the rate of new clothing, with consumers spending about one-third of their clothing budget on secondhand (ThredUp "2026 Resale Report").
  • In 2024, synthetic fibers accounted for 69% of global fiber production, dominated by polyester, which costs about half as much as cotton and now has more than three times cotton's production capacity (Textile Exchange; Changing Markets).
  • After testing over 200 garments over three years, Michigan-based nonprofit WRAP and the Leeds Institute of Textiles and Colour found no necessary link between price, brand, and garment durability—creating a sourcing bottleneck for the resale industry.

America's secondhand clothing business is expanding at nearly four times the rate of new clothing. According to ThredUp's "2026 Resale Report," secondhand clothing sales grew at close to four times the rate of new clothing over the past year; consumers now spend about one-third of their clothing budget on used garments, with avid buyers especially valuing the fabric itself rather than the style label. A March survey of nearly 200 heavy secondhand buyers by resale newsletter Pre-Loved also found that more than half of respondents cited the quality and craftsmanship of used clothing as their primary reason for buying.

This preference is set against a backdrop of new clothes getting more expensive without getting better made. US Bureau of Labor Statistics data show that in the year through August, US clothing prices rose 3.6%, slightly faster than overall inflation. Meanwhile, the global fiber supply continues to tilt toward synthetic materials—which don't breathe, easily trap odors, and constantly shed fibers. According to Textile Exchange, which publishes annual global fiber production statistics, synthetic fibers accounted for 69% of global fiber production in 2024, dominated by polyester. Changing Markets, a nonprofit tracking plastic use in fashion, notes that polyester costs roughly half as much as cotton; Textile Exchange's latest report shows factories now produce more than three times as much polyester as cotton, with polyester output still climbing and cotton's share shrinking.

According to the report, what confuses some clothing buyers is precisely this shift to polyester. Mall brands display this trade-off plainly on their shelves. An InStyle contributor who reviewed new arrivals on 12 brands' websites found that about two-thirds of what mall brands sell is synthetic; among the latest tops and jackets from three fast-fashion brands, 93% were synthetic fibers; even luxury brands hit 40%, mostly blends. These chain brands once sold real silk.

The homework has shrunk along with it. Eugene Ree, a fashion design professor at FIT who previously worked at Gap and Banana Republic, told InStyle that time- and cost-saving dyeing and cutting methods mean prints no longer need to align at the seams. Most consumers can't tell that polyester has replaced silk, so brands can keep doing it. "They just like that silky feel, they like that handfeel... so as long as it feels soft, smooth, or slippery, they actually can't tell the difference." Henry Navarro Delgado, an associate professor at Toronto Metropolitan University's School of Fashion, told NPR that it's extremely difficult for ordinary shoppers to judge polyester quality: cheap polyester garments often lack quality control, the same style may be sewn in multiple countries, and quality varies piece by piece. Brands don't make it easy for consumers to tell either—labels are often hidden under the armpit or in a skirt seam, and a dress labeled 100% cotton sometimes has a polyester lining against the skin.

High prices also don't guarantee good stitching. Brandon Veloria Giordano, co-owner of New York vintage store James Veloria, told InStyle that he only finds French seams—a labor-intensive, hidden, cleaner-looking finish—on vintage pieces; of new clothes from emerging designer brands, his reaction is: "It's very confusing, why should I pay this price." Lab testing supports his claim. Global environmental organization WRAP and the Leeds Institute of Textiles and Colour spent three years testing over 200 garments and found that how long a garment lasts can be predicted neither by price nor by brand.

To buy a brand's clothing from a better-made era, secondhand is currently the only channel. According to The RealReal's "2026 Resale Report," saved searches for specific-era clothing rose 135% in a year; searches for "Phoebe Philo Celine" (works from Philo's tenure at the brand) alone rose 650%. The RealReal CEO Rati Sahi Levesque told the Los Angeles Times: "A Phoebe Philo-era Chloé bag can be as relevant as something that just walked the runway six months ago. A piece from 20 years ago can be exactly what a 22-year-old is looking for right now."

But as more and more fast fashion gets dumped into the secondhand market, preference turns into frustration. In Pre-Loved's survey, nearly two-thirds of heavy secondhand buyers listed "too many low-quality items to sift through" as their top complaint, and many asked for the ability to block fast fashion by brand in search.

Resale companies observe that buyers are also starting to choose clothes based on durability and how much they can resell for later. Kristen Brophy, ThredUp's senior vice president of marketing, told Pre-Loved that consumers are shifting from simply looking at the price tag to calculating a garment's "lifespan value"; those who think this way "will buy better brands because they know these labels are in strong demand on the secondhand market, and they'll take better care of their clothes." In the ThredUp report, 60% of consumers said they consider resale value a key factor when buying new clothes. Young buyers especially plan their wardrobes around this: about half of Gen Z and millennial respondents said their goal is to resell more than half of the clothes they own.

But "buy to resell" presupposes there are good clothes to buy, and resellers widely feel such supply is running short. Pre-Loved newsletter author Emily Stochl points out that sellers on secondhand sites don't have trouble finding buyers—the hard part is finding enough well-made clothes to sell, and this gap now constrains how fast resale can expand. The silk, wool, and carefully stitched denim that shoppers chase were mostly made years ago, and brands no longer produce that much of them.

More polyester is on the way. Textile Exchange predicts that if the industry continues on its current path, global fiber production in 2030 will be more than a quarter higher than in 2024, with the increase driven mainly by new synthetic fibers. These fabrics almost never return to the market as new material—less than 1% of global fiber comes from recycled textiles. This means that for people buying secondhand purely for better fabrics, there will be fewer good finds on the racks every year.

Source: The best clothes you can buy were made years ago, and fashion isn't making more · Originally published 2026-10-07