The fashion industry weighs heavily in the economy. Here we will take the French economy as an example. While Fashion Week ended on Wednesday, October 5th, the French Federation of women's ready-to-wear and the French Fashion Institute (IFM) worked on the real scope of the fashion industries in France. And it appears that the fashion economy weighs even more than the automobile and aviation.
The Fashion Week in numbers
Fashion Week alone generates 10.3 billion euros in sales and 1.2 billion euros in economic benefits per year. For the first time, the textile industry, clothing, accessories, but also cosmetics, jewelery, leather goods ... have gathered their data to establish the true economic weight of this sector in France. And it's funny! With more than 300 fashion shows a year, Fashion Week generates a turnover of more than 10.3 billion euros. The economic spinoffs would amount to more than 1.2 billion euros. Obviously, all these results are possible because of the 27 trade shows organized in Paris attracting more than 14,000 exhibitors.
Textiles and clothing at the top of the ranking
According to the data compiled in the study, the turnover generated by the textile and clothing industry (67 billion euros) largely dominates other sectors such as leather goods and footwear (22 billion euros). euros) or even perfumery and cosmetics (44 billion euros). In terms of employment, the proportions are almost proportional to the size of the respective turnovers as illustrated in the graph below. The five segments highlighted in the study represent more than 550,000 direct jobs and more than 1 million indirect jobs. In the world of fashion, French companies are world leaders. The fashion activities of French companies and foreign companies with French capital generate a turnover of 70 billion euros. And for fashion in the broadest sense, the estimated turnover is approx. 150 billion euros including 33 billion Euros for export.
Fashion is more important than cars and aeronautics combined!
To highlight the weight of fashion in the French economy, the authors of the study made comparisons with the automotive and aviation sectors combined. The most interesting indicator for cross-sector comparisons is the weight of industry as a percentage of GDP. On this last point, it appears that fashion represents 1.7% of GDP, against 0.5% for cars and 0.7% for aviation. The share of fashion in French GDP is even higher than the other two sectors combined. On the other hand, exports from the aviation sector are higher than those of the fashion industry.