Apps for selling clothes second hand often have for the “condition” field a variant of: new with tag; new without tag; worn once; used.

I wouldn’t be surprised if a large percentage of clothes bought in rich countries are worn once or never.

Playing the Devil’s advocate, it could also be people who’ve worn it, and found out it’s uncomfortable or doesn’t look as expected.

But I say that as someone who gets told by his wife that he needs to throw clothes that fall apart away, so it’s just a guess ;)

It doesn't really say anything about the behavior of the majority of people. A small portion can drive this number down.

As an example, say 8 out of 10 people have 7 sets of clothes, one for each day of the week, and use the same sets for a whole year. The remaining 2 out of 10 use a new set of clothes every day, so they go through 365 sets of clothes in a year. That comes to clothes being used an average of 4.64 times:

  $ python -c 'print(
    # average used times in a year
    (
      (
        8 # people
        * 7 # sets of clothes
        * (365 / 7) # used times in a year
      ) + (
        2 # people    
        * 365 # sets of clothes
        * 1 # used times in a year
      )
    ) / (                                                        
      8 # people                                       
      * 7 # sets of clothes                           
      +                                                
      2 # people 
      * 365 # sets of clothes 
    )  
  )'                        
  4.643765903307888

Fair enough, but how many people do you know who wear a new set of clothes every day? I know zero!

There’s a small minority of people who do that -- not 20% of the population, but large enough to influence statistics. I wouldn't be surprised if that was 20% of women between 15 and 45-year-old. They also buy clothes that they never wear (other than trying). I’ve seen estimates as high as for some people, they never wear 40% of the clothes that they buy before disposing of them.

On the other end, I’m also surprised by the “one-year” thing: most of my clothes are more than five-year-old and they are fine. For underwear and t-shirts, I typically wear them once a week.

> On the other end, I’m also surprised by the “one-year” thing: most of my clothes are more than five-year-old and they are fine.

Because these are the minority of clothes despite being used by the majority of people in the example I gave, changing the timeframe doesn't really change the average. Changing the example to use a 5 year timeframe, for instance, only changes the average to 4.92.

> not 20% of the population

Right, and it also ought to be less than 80% that buys clothes no more often than once per year or per 5 years. Both extremes are exaggerated to not have to insert more tiers than needed into the example.

They don't. They cycle through the same 3-7 sets of clothes until they go threadbare, and ignore everything else in their closet unless they need something for a special occasion.

Knowing people like that would depend on your social circle.

Anyway, it's just an example to show how that number can be easily influenced by a small minority. The real numbers are going to be different.

Depends on if they factor in kids clothing.