Fashion Facts

Fashion facts are not just for educating yourself, but also a great tool to score high in your next debate about fashion. As bad as the problems of the industry are it is even more important to be solution oriented and and also acknowledge our successes.

All sources are listed at the bottom of the page.

The vast majority of garment workers – approximately 80% – are women.¹

In 2014 an estimate of 60 to 75 million people were employed in the textile, clothing and footwear sector worldwide.² In 2000 only 20 million people were employed in the industry.²

News in October 2017: 14 year old girl dies trying to reach her monthly work bonus.¹⁶

October 2017: Fast fashion companies sell "FEMINIST" t-shirts for €6,99.¹⁵

There are tens of millions of people in slavery today of which nearly 1 in 3 is a child. Researchers estimate 40 million are enslaved. 50% of slavery victims are in labor slavery, like manufacturing.³ ⁴

The world population is 7,5 billion, this means more than every 200th person is subject to slave labor. If we were to fill the Olympic Stadium in Berlin in proportion to this there would be 527 slaves in the crowd. ⁵

Worldwide every 6th working person is in the textile and clothing industry - if we also think of the cotton farmers and retail salesmen/women.⁶

It takes an average of 7,000 litres of water to produce one pair of jeans. That's about the amount of water you drink over the course of 5-6 years.⁷

2 billion pairs of jeans are produced each year.¹⁷

20% of industrial water pollution comes from the treating and dyeing textiles.⁶

In China 80% of the groundwater from major river basins is “unsuitable for human contact”.⁸

More than 2.8 billion people in 48 countries will face water stress or conditions of scarcity by 2025. By the middle of this century, this will have reached almost 7 billion.²¹

¹80% Garment Workers Female, ²Fashion Industry Employment Rate, ³Slave Labor, ⁴Segura Graphic on Child- & Slave Labor, ⁵World Population, ⁶Film „The True Cost“, ⁷7,000 Liters for Jeans, ⁸Ground Water in China, ⁹Cambodia's GDP in 2015, ¹°Inditex (incl. Zara) Turnover, ¹¹20% of Clothing Not Worn Once, ¹²Average Clothing Wears, ¹³H&M Accused of Burning New Clothes, ¹⁴Fashion Revolution Graphics & Facts, ¹⁵Feminism in Fast Fashion, ¹⁶14 Year Old Girls Dies Trying to Reach Monthly Bonus, ¹⁷Jeans per Year, ¹⁸Fashion Revolution Impact Slides 2017, ¹⁹Fashion Revolution Impact Slides 2018 , ²°KWFinder, ²¹Global Water Institute