Is European Dry Cleaning Booming? The Answer Reveals Something Bigger About Our Industry.

What the global garment care industry can teach American cleaners about changing customers, new revenue opportunities, and the future of professional wardrobe care.

By Dawn Hargrove-Avery

Executive Director and Chief AI Officer

National Cleaners Association

The dry-cleaning industry has spent years asking whether traditional garment care is declining.

Casual clothing has replaced much of the formal business wardrobe. Consumers work differently, dress differently, shop differently, and increasingly expect services to fit their schedules rather than the other way around.

These changes are not unique to the United States.

They are happening throughout Europe and across much of the developed world.

But after participating in the CINET Global Best Practices Awards in Milan and reviewing the newly released From Wash to Worth: Growth and Added Value in Professional Textile Care to 2050 (Global Professional Textile Care Strategy Study, Roadmap 2050, October 2026), I believe we need to ask a better question.

Rather than asking whether dry cleaning is growing or declining, we should be asking what professional garment care is becoming.

And what I see emerging is an industry whose value may be increasingly defined by something much greater than the number of garments cleaned.

Europe Is Not Experiencing a Universal Dry-Cleaning Boom

There is a perception that European cleaners have somehow escaped the changes affecting the American market.

The research tells a more complicated story.

According to CINET's October 2026 study, Western Europe's professional textile care market was approximately USD 29.4 billion in 2025, with a composite scenario reaching about USD 54.8 billion by 2050. Those figures are in U.S. dollars at current prices. The 2050 figure is a scenario projection, not a guaranteed forecast.

Those figures encompass the broader professional textile care industry, including industrial laundry and textile services. They should not be interpreted as growth projections for traditional retail dry cleaning alone.

In fact, the study identifies retail shop losses in Western Europe, ongoing consolidation, labor as a binding constraint, and growth in self-service formats.

Sound familiar?

Europe is dealing with many of the same market forces facing American operators.

The important distinction is how different businesses are responding.

From Cleaning Clothes to Maintaining Their Value

One of the most significant themes emerging from the global study is the increasing importance of garment longevity.

For decades, dry-cleaning marketing has largely focused on the transaction.

We clean suits.

We remove stains.

We press shirts.

We offer convenient service.

Those remain important capabilities, but they do not fully communicate the value of professional garment care.

A garment is more than something that becomes dirty.

It represents an investment, a personal preference, a memory, a professional image, or simply something its owner wants to continue wearing.

Professional care can help protect that value.

Cleaning, repair, alteration, restoration, careful finishing, and appropriate preservation all contribute to extending the useful life of clothing.

The European industry's emerging strategy increasingly recognizes that the customer is not simply purchasing cleaning.

The customer is purchasing the continued usefulness, appearance, and enjoyment of something they already own.

That is a very different value proposition.

The Resale Economy Is Changing the Conversation

Luxury resale offers another example.

In November 2026, The RealReal announced the appointment of former Match Group CEO Shar Dubey to its board, emphasizing digital innovation, artificial intelligence, consumer engagement, and continued growth in luxury resale.

The company reported a community of 45 million members and more than 55 million items sold.

The significance for professional garment care extends beyond those numbers.

Every garment entering the resale economy has a condition, a construction, a history, and potentially a need for cleaning, repair, restoration, or alteration.

Professional cleaners already possess knowledge that can support those needs.

What we have not fully developed is a consistent business model connecting our expertise to the broader garment lifecycle.

And this is not a new conversation at NCA.

As early as 2015, the association was exploring a proposed luxury trade-in partnership with Material Wrld.

By 2018, our industry education included discussion of Poshmark, The RealReal, garment recycling, donation programs, redesigned retail experiences, and new consumer services.

We recognized that professional cleaners occupied a potentially valuable position between consumers and the garments they owned.

Today, connected technology makes it easier to explore how those relationships might develop.

The European Lesson Is Not Simply Better Marketing

A beautifully designed website will not compensate for inconsistent service.

A sustainability campaign does not mean much without credible practices behind it.

And a claim about professional expertise must be supported by professional knowledge.

That is why the opportunity must involve more than changing the words on a website.

If we want to market garment longevity, we need services that actually extend garment life.

If we want to promote responsible care, we need employees who understand cleaning methods, fabric construction, care labels, and potential risks.

If we want to participate in resale, we need appropriate inspection, preparation, repair, and referral procedures.

If we want to offer Wardrobe Management, we need to define what that service includes and how it will be delivered.

The marketing promise and the operating capability must match.

This is where I believe associations have a particularly important responsibility.

From Dry Cleaner to Wardrobe Manager

NCA has been exploring the broader identity of the Wardrobe Manager for years.

In 2019, I worked with programmers to develop an Alexa skill for dry cleaners while considering how technology could create a more connected relationship between customers, their garments, and the professionals caring for them. The ultimate vision was Wardrobe Management. The skill was not a fully functioning, integrated wardrobe system.

The idea was not simply to replace a telephone call with a voice command.

It was to begin thinking about garment information beyond the individual cleaning order.

Today, artificial intelligence, digital imaging, connected workflows, and better information management offer new possibilities for supporting that vision.

Imagine a garment care professional who has access to relevant garment history, documented condition, previous concerns, appropriate care guidance, and information that helps make better service decisions.

Imagine being able to explain not only what a customer should do with a garment today, but how they can maintain it over time.

Imagine using professional knowledge to support repair, restoration, preservation, and resale preparation.

This is the direction we are exploring through NCA's Wardrobe Management initiatives and the development of professional certification.

But the technology is only part of the story.

The professional remains essential.

Artificial Intelligence Is a Tool, Not the Strategy

AI can help businesses organize information, support customer communication, retrieve technical knowledge, document workflows, analyze operations, and reduce repetitive administrative work.

It can make professional expertise more accessible and help owners make better-informed decisions.

But AI does not automatically produce a better business.

An organization with inconsistent processes, unreliable information, or poorly defined responsibilities will struggle to realize the full value of new technology.

That is the foundation of the AI Readiness Gap framework and the SmartCare Method I have been developing.

We begin with the business.

We identify the problem.

We examine the information, workflow, people, and decisions involved.

Then we determine whether technology can create a measurable improvement.

The objective is not simply to introduce AI.

It is to strengthen the business and the professional people responsible for delivering the service.

What American Cleaners Can Learn

We do not need to copy every European business model.

American consumers, labor markets, operating costs, regulations, and regional conditions differ.

But we can learn from the direction of international industry development.

I see five opportunities worth serious consideration.

First, change the customer conversation.

Explain how appropriate professional care can help preserve garment appearance, condition, and useful life.

Second, develop services beyond traditional dry cleaning.

Alterations, restoration, specialty cleaning, professional wet cleaning, preservation, and resale preparation may create new reasons for customers to visit.

Third, make convenience part of a broader service experience.

Pickup and delivery, digital communication, and easy access should support the customer relationship, not replace it.

Fourth, demonstrate sustainability through practical actions.

Garment life extension, responsible processing, repair, reusable materials, and measurable resource efficiency are stronger than vague environmental promises.

Fifth, invest in the people and systems that make new services possible.

Training, consistent procedures, clear information, and sound business decisions must come before ambitious technology claims.

Not every opportunity will fit every cleaner. Each requires evaluation of demand, capability, cost, and profitability.

But doing nothing is also a business decision.

NCA's Next Chapter

The National Cleaners Association has been serving the garment care industry since 1946.

Throughout that history, our role has been to help members navigate changes in technology, regulation, customer behavior, and business conditions.

Today, that mission requires us to look beyond traditional definitions of dry cleaning.

We are advancing the SmartCare Method, exploring connected garment intelligence, developing Wardrobe Manager Certification, and continuing to strengthen the practical knowledge available to independent operators.

Our objective is to help members move from awareness to readiness, and from readiness to implementation.

Not every cleaner needs robotics.

Not every business needs an elaborate technology platform.

But every operator needs to understand where the market is moving, how their customers are changing, and what capabilities will keep their business relevant.

CINET's From Wash to Worth study offers a useful global perspective.

Its message is not that traditional garment cleaning will disappear.

It is that future opportunities increasingly involve professional expertise, service value, garment longevity, technology, and the ability to manage textiles throughout their useful lives.

That is a direction NCA has been examining for years.

Now we have the opportunity to help make it operational.

The Question We Should Be Asking

Is European dry cleaning booming?

Not universally.

Some traditional retail operations face significant pressure, while other professional textile care services are developing new opportunities.

The more important lesson is that the definition of value is changing.

Perhaps it is time we stopped measuring our future only by how many garments people bring to our counters.

Perhaps we should also measure how much value we help customers preserve, how many additional services we can provide, and how effectively we turn our professional expertise into stronger businesses.

Because the future of our industry will not be determined solely by how well we clean clothes.

It will also be determined by how well we help people care for what they own.

And that is an opportunity worth preparing for.

About the Author

Dawn Hargrove-Avery is Executive Director and Chief AI Officer of the National Cleaners Association. She is the creator of the SmartCare Method, SmartCare OS, and the AI Readiness Gap framework. Her work focuses on AI transformation, industry readiness, professional education, and the future of garment care.

Research References

1. CINET. From Wash to Worth: Growth and Added Value in Professional Textile Care to 2050. Global Professional Textile Care Strategy Study, Roadmap 2050. October 2026.

2. CINET. United States · Retail Textile Care. Global Professional Textile Care Strategy Study, Roadmap 2050. October 2026.

3. National Cleaners Association. The Age of Disruption: Are You Ready? 2018.

4. The RealReal. "The RealReal Appoints Shar Dubey to Board of Directors." November 5, 2026. https://investor.therealreal.com/news/news-details/2026/The-RealReal-Appoints-Shar-Dubey-to-Board-of-Directors/default.aspx