There’s no question that the apparel industry has been in a period of instability and stunted growth, which has resulted in low margins, the removal of underperforming locations and the freezing of expansion plans.
However, despite challenging operating conditions and a soft market for the past several years, movement is occurring within the industry as consumers have started to shift their spending back to apparel.
While forecasting the future is no easy feat, the apparel retailers that have survived the fallout can look to the future with optimism as the apparel market begins to see its long-awaited return to growth with an annual forecasted growth rate of 3% between 2014 and 2018.
Undoubtedly, the industry’s expansion is partially due to the rise of e-commerce and the adoption of continually advancing technology, but it appears as though the real drivers of the overall apparel industry’s growth are the spectacular gains being made by specific apparel subsegments.
The fashion industry’s continued buzz regarding the strength that the activewear, menswear and women’s wear segments possess as well as these segments’ growth projections and retailers’ strong interest in entering or expanding into these segments led Buxton to pose the following questions:
- What markets are spending the most on apparel overall, on activewear, menswear and women’s wear?
- Where are these segments’ best customers located in terms of dollars spent?
- How will the top markets grow in the next five years?
To answer these questions, we analyzed the nation’s top markets in order to identify and rank the top 5 markets that currently have the highest annual market spending per category, the top 5 markets that are expected to have the highest annual spending per category within the next 5 years, and the top 5 markets that are projected to have the highest per capita spending per category between 2013 and 2018.
Find out the answers to our questions by downloading Buxton’s report: Projections Through 2018 – The Top Metro Areas for Fashion’s 3 Hottest Segments.
