Earth to Us

How Many Clothes Should We Own, Exactly? 

How Many Clothes Do We Need Exactly
Photographed by Max Siedentopf, Vogue, April 2022

“Buy less and buy better” has become a common refrain in fashion’s sustainability movement. But how much should we actually be buying? If a new report is anything to go by, it’s likely a lot less than you think. Researchers from Berlin’s Hot Or Cool Institute found that we should only be purchasing five new garments a year in order to stay in line with the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees celsius, if nothing else changes. That would mean shoppers in the U.K. alone would need to reduce their consumption by up to 80 percent in some cases.

“It’s now normal to consume fashion [in a way] that’s really excessive and out of scale with what we need,” Luca Coscieme, the Hot Or Cool Institute’s research program manager and one of the report’s lead authors, tells Vogue. “We’re consuming more and more fashion at cheaper prices, and with a shorter [usage] time per item—and it doesn’t add up in terms of climate,” Lewis Akenji, managing director at the institute and the report’s fellow lead author, adds. 

Perhaps unsurprisingly, it’s shoppers in richer countries that are consuming more than their fair share of fashion. The report found that Australia, Japan, the U.S., and the U.K. have the highest carbon footprint per capita when it comes to fashion consumption. Out of the G20 countries, India, Brazil, China, Turkey, and Indonesia have the lowest carbon footprint per capita. In fact, these countries are not currently meeting their “carbon budget”—the emissions per capita that would still be in line with the 1.5 degrees celsius limit, if fashion consumption were to be divided equally. “Fashion shows how unequal society is—not just unequal in economic terms, but also in terms of contributions to greenhouse gas emissions per capita,” Akenji says. 

The researchers found that a “sufficient” wardrobe consists of 74 garments and 20 outfits in total. As an example, they’ve suggested six outfits for work, three outfits for home wear, three outfits for sports, two outfits for festive occasions, plus four outdoor jackets and trousers or skirts. “It’s a very generous allocation that we’ve given in our estimate,” Akenji explains. An average French wardrobe during the 1960s consisted of around 40 pieces, although times have admittedly moved on since then. 

Interestingly, the report’s authors suggest that if other action is taken by both brands and consumers, we could actually go back to the consumption levels of 2010 in the UK and still be within fashion’s carbon budget for a 1.5 degrees celsius pathway. “We’re not really talking about going back to the Middle Ages,” Coscieme comments. “When we [talk about] these big reductions, it doesn’t mean that you have to [make do with] one or two T-shirts or whatever—it’s much more feasible.”

Alongside reducing the absolute amount of garments we’re purchasing, there are other behavioral changes we can make to reduce our fashion footprint. Buying second-hand clothing can help, but only if you’re purchasing that item instead of something new. “In most cases, second-hand is used to keep consuming excessively,” Coscieme says. “When you buy a second-hand garment you still have all of the impacts associated with consumption; it still counts as a garment that you have to wash and eventually dispose of.”

On that point, washing your clothes at 30 degrees celsius and skipping one in every three washes can reduce your carbon footprint, while wearing your clothes for longer is the second best thing you can do, after not buying anything new. According to waste charity WRAP, extending the average life of a garment by nine months can reduce its carbon footprint by around 25 percent. Ensuring you properly dispose of your clothes so they don’t end up in landfill (by selling them on, for example) can also help reduce carbon emissions.

Of course, consumer behavior is only part of the puzzle, particularly considering that the majority of fashion’s carbon footprint comes from the production of clothes. But collective change can help influence the industry at large.“We felt there was really a gap on what we can do as consumers and how to translate that into concrete action that we can do today,” Coscieme says.