Work Note 36/2024 edited by N. Faraoni, M. Mariani, N. Sciclone
This paper takes a snapshot of the health of the fashion industry, with particular reference to the leather, tanning and footwear sectors. The analysis uses, integrating them with each other, quantitative information that can be obtained from the main statistical sources concerning production, exports and labor, and qualitative information that it was possible to detect through a guided discussion (focus group) with the main employers’ organizations representing industrialists and artisans and a qualified audience of their members.
Fashion is the manufacturing sector in the greatest difficulty in the current economic phase, marked by declining international trade and domestic consumption. Holding back demand are the restrictive orientation of monetary policies, unresolved geopolitical tensions between Ukraine and Russia, and the sharp contraction of the Chinese market, to which have more recently been added the hostilities that have opened up on the Middle East front. Also weighing negatively on the economy is the widespread perception of further impoverishment among large sections of the population, because the surge in inflation, although now placed on a gradual path of retreat, has in previous months caused a compression of savings and a downward revision of expectations for a large segment of households.
But fashion, and in particular the leather, tanning and footwear sectors, are also negatively affected by certain changes not necessarily related to the events of the business cycle, and which are currently an unresolved critical issue for many companies. (…)
