I asked this question recently, unfortunately it did not get me closer to an actionable answer. Of course clothes get damaged and stuff is in the lint drawer, but it is a huge difference between losing the longevity by a 1% and 30%. Any actual research would be tremendously helpful.
Personal study from memory: I have t-shirts that have always been washer/dryer treated. Depending on the quality of fabric most have fallen apart in a few to 10 yrs, though I do have like 4 that are 30 yrs old
I don’t have a study, but the tumbling and rubbing wears on clothes, compared to hanging to dry.
Some good shirts you will notice the collar seams and other edges start to wear.
In some cases like jeans and cotton cashual henley style shirts this gives a softening effect.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15440478.2025.2549597
somewhat close (they basically measure shedding, although mainly about speed of drum importance (seems like both fixed fast rotation or very slow are better), but it doesn’t seem there is dramatic increase over cycles (the first is the worst, evidently, see fig 5), but they don’t do 100 cycles, you can search around in theirs citations for more info probably.
