What was the total global spend (market size) on luxury clothing in
2005, and the growth from 2000 to 2005?

Please specify what is included in total, and provided detailed
information on the source.

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Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 05 May 2006 19:23 PDT

nancyu-ga,

There are several commercial market studies available for the luxury
clothing market that provide a wealth of details (pun intended). 
Unfortunately, it takes a bit of wealth to purchase the reports, which
run in the thousands of dollars each.

Bits and pieces of information are made available to the press, but I
don't know if they will be useful to you, since there isn't a clear
definition of what is/isn't included.

For instance, I found the following statements:

--...spending on luxury apparel in the U.S. hit $10 billion last year
and...will rise 6% to 8% a year through 2008.

--...Last year Americans spent an estimated $62 billion on luxury
clothes, shoes and accessories, up almost $4 billion from the previous
year. Although midmarket department stores have struggled recently,
luxury purveyors like Neiman Marcus, which owns Bergdorf Goodman, are
flourishing; its sales rose 17.2 percent in August compared with the
same month last year...
 

--...But Japan's tastes are rapidly changing: Sales of luxury apparel
items fell 33% from 1996 to $12 billion in 2003.


--...global luxury market...forecast data showing that the total
luxury goods market is expected to top US$2 trillion in the next five
years, with the luxury apparel segment topping US$100bn



There's not much detail available beyond consolidated numbers like the ones above.


There's also a fair amount of mention of the luxury market bouncing
back from the hard times that followed 2001, though I didn't see hard
and fast trends data.

Will those sorts of figures above meet your needs?  If so, I'd be
happy to post some additional excerpts, and provide citations for the
sources of information.

Let me know what you think.


pafalafa-ga

Can you give a definition of "luxury clothing", one that is valid globally?

Much clothing worn everyday by business persons in Europe and N.
America, for work or leisure, could be considered "luxury" priced in
other parts of the world.  Name brands such as Levi or Adidas, Nike,
are luxury clothing to many in the Third World.
Perhaps these sites can help identify what you mean  - or the
difficuly with the definition:
http://www.luxurylifestyle.com/listings/fashion/index.cfm
http://www.bizrate.co.uk/search__cat_id--1__keyword--luxury%20clothes__nwylf--1.html