Women Buy 62 Pounds of Clothes Per Year, Study Finds
It’s happened to everyone. You arrive at the airport and attempt to check your bag, only to find that it has surpassed the airline’s weight limit. Who knew your wardrobe weighed so much?
We certainly didn’t—but journalist Lucy Siegle, author of To Die For: Is Fashion Wearing Out the World?, did—after all, her book cites stats like the fact that the average woman buys 62 pounds of clothing every year. (Assuming you begin the bulk shopping phase of your life at age 20, that means by the time you’ve hit 30, you’ve amassed 620 pounds. No wonder the TSA can’t handle your luggage.)
Other eye-opening statistics, according to The Independent? The average woman has upward of 20 garments in her closet that she’s never worn. Women are expected to spend £133,640 (that’s about $218,893, at current exchange rates) in their lifetime on fashion. And women today own four times as much clothing as the average woman in 1980.
Siegle’s agenda with the book is to illustrate how “fast fashion” is damaging the environment—a topic even designer Vivienne Westwood, who famously told women to stop buying clothes, can agree with.
Do you blame stores like H&M and Forever 21 for your shopping habits?
