Lombardy companies account for one third of fashion exports

(Il Sole 24 Ore Radiocor) - Milan is the fashion capital and Lombardy is a leading industry player. If the regional capital is one of the world's fashion meccas and its weeks dedicated to fashion shows (the last one in 2024 from 20 to 26 February) are among the unmissable appointments for stylists, buyers and insiders, Lombardy can count on a rich entrepreneurial fabric active in the production of fabrics, clothes and accessories.

In Lombardy, according to processing by the Centro studi di Confindustria Varese based on ISTAT data, in 2021 (the latest available data) there were 9,565 companies active in the textile, clothing, footwear and leather goods sectors, accounting for 16.5% of the total in Italy, with 81,586 workers, or 19% of the sector in Italy. Of these workers, 25,336 operate in the manufacture of clothing (excluding fur products). On the podium in terms of the number of employees, the other textile industries (which include knitted fabrics, the manufacture of non-clothing textiles, technical or industrial textiles and other textile products such as lace, lace and embroidery) with 17,286 units, and the weaving sector with 9,834 units. At territorial level, the province with the highest number of workers in the fashion sector is Milan, with 24.9% of the total, followed by Como (13.5%), Varese (13%) Bergamo (12.6%), Brescia (10.8%) and Mantua (10%).

The contribution made by Lombardy's companies to the Italian fashion system is fundamental on an economic level: in 2022, exports by companies in the area amounted to 17.739 billion euros, or 27.3% of the Italian total (up from 14.387 billion in 2021, when the pre-candidate level of 2019 had already been exceeded). In 2022, Lombardy's top five export markets were the United States (with 2.295bn), France (1.713bn), China (1.416bn), South Korea (1.208bn) and Switzerland (1.179bn). In the same year, the fashion industry had a total turnover in our country of around 100 billion Euro, with 70% of the total coming from exports. In particular, according to Confindustria Moda, the turnover in 2022 was EUR 107 billion, with a growth of 16% over 2021 and 9% over 2019, the last year before the pandemic. For 2023, the preliminary estimate of Confindustria Moda is a turnover of EUR 111.7 billion, with a growth of 3.2% compared to 2022, thanks to an increase in prices, when volumes fell slightly.