FASHION AND TEXTILES INDUSTRY IN EUROPE.

 Europe is home to hundreds of leading retailers and brands, internationally acclaimed

designers, thousands of talented emerging designers and forward-thinking entrepreneurs,
researchers and educators.
 The mass production of clothing began roughly in the mid-nineteenth century, when some
manufacturers began to produce garments that did not require fitting session with the sewer
or tailors. Fashion did not become an established industry in the institution sense of the
word until the twentieth century.
 In the 1950s and 1960s, a growing number of entrepreneurial designers began to make their
way out of the backrooms to feature their own names on their labels (creation of designer
brand names), a development facilitated in part by the curiosity of the press and also by the
ambitions of manufacturers to capitalize on designer personalities.
 These industries form complex and interlinked value chains from the design and
manufacturing of fashion goods (such as textiles, clothing, footwear, leather, fur products,
jewellery, and accessories) and high-end goods, to their distribution and retail.
 Despite the economic crisis, many European companies in the sector have managed to
defend their position in the global market. This is mainly due to a move towards innovative,
high added-value products and services, niche markets, and new business models.
 This sector grew faster than the rest of the European economy during the crisis, recording
double digit growth in 2010 and 2011. High-end industries alone employ over 1 million
people, export over 60% of their production outside Europe, and account for 10% of all EU
exports.
 Today, the EU textile and clothing sector remains a SMEs based industry. Companies of less
than 50 employees account for over 90% of the workforce and produce almost 60% of the
value added. Clothing and textiles is also one of the most globalised industries with the chain
of production, wholesale and retail of even just one product spanning dozens of stakeholders
and many continents.
 Europe’s relationship with the fashion industry in the developing world is complex. EU
clothing imports increased strongly over each quarter of 2014. Europe now imports about
half of the world’s entire clothing production with China manufacturing an estimated 65
percent of the world’s textiles. Other major clothing and textile manufacturing countries and
emerging economies include India, Cambodia, Bangladesh and Turkey where farmers and
workers commonly make less than a living wage and benefit from very little social protection.
 The relationships along fashion’s long value chain are broken. Consumers don’t know
how and where things are made, and they overlook worker's lives and the bad conditions of
working.
 This way of working also allows environmental catastrophe to persist. According to the
Danish Fashion Institute (2013), fashion is the world’s 2nd most polluting industry, second
only to oil. 25% of chemicals produced worldwide are used for textiles and the industry is
often noted as the number two polluter of clean wáter, after agriculture.
 Another unfortunate side effect of the current model is the loss of time-honoured crafts,
culture and skills. Europe has seen the decimation of techniques such as Harris Tweed
weaving, haute couture embroidery and specialist leather making over the past several
decades.