Textile Exchange has just published its analysis of global fiber usage in 2025 and, unsurprisingly, synthetic materials (69%) take the top spot on the podium, far ahead of plant-based fibers (23%).
Page 11 - 2026 Materials market report - Textile Exchange
Every year, I really enjoy reading this report. It demonstrates, clearly and pragmatically, that we are very far from the virtuous industry that certain large corporations try to sell us year-round. This is particularly evident when it comes to the use of recycled materials, whose usage rate has hovered around 7% since 2022.
So it comes as no surprise to learn that polyester is the most widely used fibre on the market. 59%. Just imagine: 59% of all fibers used in the market are polyester fibres. The fibre in second place is cotton, which accounts for only 18%. The gap is staggering.
So I asked myself what makes this fiber so widely used. Of course, I had an idea even before conducting my research, but I didn't expect to discover such a strong correlation between laundry and politics.
(well, actually I did, but the sentence sounded better that way)
I knew that polyester is a very inexpensive fibre. In an economy powered by mass manufacturing at the lowest possible cost, it isn't surprising that it emerges as the top choice. It is also a synthetic fiber whose processing is relatively simple compared to cotton or hemp. It is easy to care for, suitable for everything from sportswear to car interiors. In short, the list of benefits in our current world is long.
Why is polyester so widely used?
I recently acquired and read Reset Fashion, an entrepreneurial dive into the murky waters of fashion sustainability by Romain Liot. The book makes no false promises; instead, it delivers a detailed analysis and a critical look at numerous aborted initiatives aimed at making fashion more sustainable. It addresses manufacturing, marketing, legislation, and finance, analyzing the levers that could enable the industry to become more eco-responsible without falling into utopia.
If I'm mentioning Romain Liot's book, it's because it offers a particularly fascinating key to understanding polyester's dominance. The analysis actually comes from Lutz Walter (the book is thoroughly sourced), a textile expert. Here it is:
China is the world leader in polyester production.
Polyester is used so massively because the petrochemical industry has been heavily subsidized by the Chinese government. In 2025, Chinese polyester production capacity exceeded global market demand by 15%. And according to market rules, if supply exceeds demand, prices collapse.
By investing heavily in its production infrastructure (spinning, textile manufacturing, dyeing, and finishing), China became the world's leading polyester producer, making competition impossible.
Of course, Chinese investments didn't appear out of nowhere. On one hand, there is the employment of millions of migrant workers whose low-cost labor is heavily exploited in major textile manufacturing regions such as Zhejiang and Guangdong. On the other, financial repression allows household savings to be funneled into large-scale manufacturing projects like the textile industry.
“This strategic overcapacity is sustained by practices impossible elsewhere, driving down prices at every level of the value chain (spinning, weaving, dyeing, finishing), providing an abundant and virtually free raw material to Shein (which typically accounts for 30%–40% of a garment's cost price), weakening textile industries in the Global South and rendering industrial alternatives economically unviable.” — p. 186 of Reset Fashion
This analysis is truly compelling!
Key takeaways from this article:
- Everything is political.
- For a long time, Western countries designed while China produced. Western brands relied on this model to generate profits based largely on hot air—i.e., marketing, brand names, patent ownership, and design—while China invested heavily in the absolute foundation of textile manufacturing: fabric and raw material production.
With the rise of brands like Shein and Temu, the wind on which Western brands relied for profit has shifted, and the money now sits in the pockets of Chinese investors.
And what remains in the West?
Only our eyes to weep over the loss of our industrial know-how and our capacity to design and think through products sold en masse on the global market.
In Europe, legislation also remains—an interesting phenomenon that will ultimately reshuffle the deck, as seen since the implementation of the European tax on small packages in July. Although the drop is relative, the impact is real: a 4-point decline in market share in July, dropping from 29% to 25% of online clothing purchases across Shein, Temu, and AliExpress.
We also retain the choice to reindustrialize, particularly in high-value strategic sectors like defense, healthcare, and aerospace, where relying on a potential adversary during times of geopolitical uncertainty would be reckless. - Overconsumption does not stem primarily from consumers, but from an entire system engineered to dominate the market—China produces beyond global demand to drive prices down while simultaneously needing outlets to sell its goods.
I leave you with the concluding words of Lutz Walter's article:
« The Ricardian dream of balanced trade is dead; in its place is a dangerous symbiosis where one side produces what it cannot consume, and the other consumes what it can no longer produce, while the planet absorbs the emissions and waste that result from this madness. »
Sources :
Material market report and materials Benchmark insights and trends, 2026, Textile Exchange, https://textileexchange.org/knowledge-center/reports/materials-market-report-2026/
Lutz Walter's analysis in his article The Fabric of Imbalance: The Crisis of the Textile Industry as Sign of a Collapsing Global Trading System: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/fabric-imbalance-crisis-textile-industry-sign-global-trading-walter-dpucf/
Romain Liot's book, Reset Fashion: An Entrepreneurial Dive into the Murky Waters of Fashion Sustainability, https://editions-reconnaissance.fr/livre/reset-fashion/
Temu, Shein and AliExpress continue their growth in France despite encouraging indicators, HuffPost, article based on the study published by the French Fashion Institute (IFM): https://www.huffingtonpost.fr/economie/article/temu-shein-et-aliexpress-continuent-leur-progression-en-france-malgre-des-indicateurs-encourageants_329146.html
