Shifting Fashion Capitals Could Help Make Room for Mexico

By KELIN DILLON

Dynamics are shifting in the fashion world, and cities across the globe, following years of the “Big Four” (New York, London, Milan, Paris — in sequential order) dominating the market, could now find the opportunity to make their own mark on the once-exclusive industry, including Mexico City.

IFDAQ Global Cities Consumer IPX (Index) reported to Vogue Business that Paris is poised to take over relevancy as the Number One fashion capital in the world, overtaking the long-time reign of New York City, by the year 2025.

IFDAQ weighed the global economy, industry influence, market capitalization and fashion economic performance as factors to determine who took the top spot.

Experts mentioned that the rise of Paris to the top coincided alongside Brexit, making Paris “the de facto economic capital of the European Union” following the United Kingdom’s exit from the alliance.

According to the IFDAQ, part of New York’s slip from the crown came from the United States’ trade war with China, limiting its global economic relevance and sending wealthy Chinese off to other countries to procure their sartorial needs.

As Mexico’s relationship with China grows, bolstered by the relationship brought on by the procurement of the CanSino coronavirus vaccine and the 2019 visit to China from Mexico’s Secretary of Foreign Affairs Marcelo Ebrard, perhaps Mexico City Fashion Week could find its audience peppered with more ready-to-spend Chinese fashion-lovers than usual as the relationship between the two countries grows.

IFDAQ also said that London is poised to take over Milan as the third-most-relevant fashion capital in the world, due to Milan’s long-wavering economy, and the way that Italian fashion is spread outside of Milan between Rome, Venice and Florence, while British fashion is concentrated in London.

Mexico only holds fashion week under the fabled Mercedes-Benz name in Mexico City, concentrating much of the country’s best fashion efforts in the capital, much like London. Outside of the nation, Mexico is regarded as the fashion capital of Latin America, only increasing its credibility worldwide and posing it to potentially expand to become a fashion capital of the world.

In fact, Latin America’s market, prior to the coronavirus pandemic, was booming. In 2017, Business of Fashion found that the Latin American fashion market was poised to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 7.2 percent for the following five years to surpass $220 billion by 2021. 

“Mexico is one of the largest and most rewarding retail markets due to the sheer size of its population and an expanding middle class that has a huge appetite for international brands,” Josh Holmes, a consumer analyst at BMI Research, told BoF.

Smaller markets are set to emerge in the near future, said IFDAQ, particularly Tokyo, Los Angeles, Shanghai and Moscow are posed to be upcoming threats to the Big Four, but don’t discount Mexico City, which one day soon will hopefully grow from fashion capital of Latin America, to a fashion capital of the world.

…Feb. 23, 2021