Global clothing production transgresses planetary boundaries, including climate change, biodiversity loss, and freshwater pollution. Behavior changes—especially among the richest 10%—are critical for environmental mitigation. Reducing acquisition has the highest mitigation potential, followed by shifts to second-hand clothes and eco-friendly (e.g., recycled) fabrics. Although clothing acquisition is widely studied in the social and behavioral sciences, most research relies on intentions, hypothetical choices, and retrospective self-reports of subjective frequencies. These approaches do not converge well with actual behavior, limiting their utility for understanding and changing acquisition and assessing the scaled mitigation potential of interventions. Here, we systematically review quantitative, empirical studies across psychology, marketing, sociology, and economics to (1) identify observational and precise self-reporting techniques for measuring clothing acquisition and (2) synthesize predictors of different acquisition types. Our search identified 67 peer-reviewed publications published between 2013 and 2025. Outcome measures included individual- and group-level acquisition in naturally occurring situations (by tracking purchases, sales, expenditure, or revenue) as well as arranged, consequential choices. Some studies estimated environmental impacts from purchase counts or expenditure. Preliminary results suggest that environmentalism is more consistently related to acquiring clothes from eco-friendly materials or second-hand than to general or conventional acquisition. In contrast, higher financial resources, advertising exposure, and material aspirations were consistently related to more conventional acquisition. Last, reduction goals and self-regulation were consistently related to less conventional acquisition. Overall, we hope to support theorizing on clothing acquisition and the development and assessment of behavioral interventions.