Fashion Industry Feeling Cautiously Optimistic About 2023 and the Next Five Years

The United States Fashion Industry Association (USFIA) produces an annual Fashion Industry Benchmarking Study, in conjunction with Dr. Sheng Lu , Associate Professor in the University of Delaware's Department of Fashion & Apparel Studies. This annual survey of executives from leading fashion brands, retailers, importers, and wholesalers covers the business outlook, sourcing practices, utilization of Free Trade Agreements and preference programs, and views on trade policy. Over the next few days, we’ll be sharing key findings from this year’s 10th annual Fashion Industry Benchmarking Study.

Respondents to this year’s Benchmarking Survey expressed cautious optimism about the outlook for the fashion industry over the next five years. We conducted this survey from April to June of 2023, so there was still some worry of a recession hanging over business leaders, as evidenced by “inflation and economic outlook in the U.S.” coming in as the top concern for this year. Recent economic indicators also presented a mixed picture of the growth trajectory for the U.S. economy, like the World Bank’s 2023 global economic forecast and the U.S. consumer confidence index.?

Set against this backdrop of uncertainty, half of respondents (52%) felt that their company’s financials would be better this year than they were last year, as opposed to 37% in 2022. The number of respondents who thought the company financials would be somewhat worse fell from 33% in 2022 to 26% in 2023 and ZERO respondents thought their company financials would be significantly worse this year (verses 7% in 2022).?

Nearly 70% of respondents also view the five-year outlook for the U.S. fashion industry optimistically. While this is a slight decrease from last year, it is notable given both the outside economic factors at play and the number of pessimistic respondents falling over the past year to under 5%.?

This optimism is also a good sign for the U.S. economy and jobs market, because 85% of respondents are planning to increase hiring over the next five years to support planned business expansions. This demand for human talent spans a broad range of positions and business priorities.

Want to learn more? Read the 2023 Benchmarking Study or sign up for Sourcing Trends & Challenges in 2023: Highlights from USFIA's Annual Benchmarking Study, our webinar with study author, Dr. Sheng Lu. Interested in participating in the next study? Contact us to find out more.