Europe is home to some of the most lucrative markets for apparel and clothing worldwide, as well as some of the largest apparel companies. In 2021, the United Kingdom had the fifth highest
, at a value of over 73 billion U.S. dollars. This made it the
, followed closely by Germany. Women’s and girl’s apparel is responsible for the largest
overall, making up well over half of the market.
Clothing trade and manufacture
The European Union is the
region which imports the most clothing worldwide by quite some distance, with roughly a third of world imports. It also ranked as the
second largest exporter of clothing goods, behind China, where many clothes are manufactured. With many companies in Europe choosing to outsource production to China and other cheaper locations across the world, the
number of textile and clothing manufacturing companies in the European Union has fallen over the past years. Despite this, the
turnover of this industry has not shown such steep decline, although numbers did drop in 2021.
Leading retailers
Many of Europe’s most popular fashion brands are among the
leading clothing companies worldwide in terms of brand value. Based on
clothing companies’ turnover in Europe alone, Inditex of Spain comes out on top, with a turnover of around 17.5 billion euros in 2021, followed by H&M of Sweden and Zalando, which is based in Germany. Inditex is responsible for several well-known clothing brands, including
Zara, Bershka, Massimo Dutti, and Pull & Bear. The
revenue of fashion e-commerce in Europe has grown considerably since 2017. Its popularity is growing among consumers and is forecast to continue to grow rapidly, which benefits online fashion companies such as Zalando.
Zalando’s revenues reached over ten billion euros in the 2021 financial year.
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