Source page: McKinsey & Company
Commentary
Is NYC out of fashion?
Fashion | Economy | Talent
September 16, 2024 – New York City has long been considered the epicenter of the fashion industry in the United States and a trendsetter on the global stage. However, the city now faces a triple threat from declining economic output, employment, and education, note senior partner Maurice Obeid and coauthors. Since 2014, there’s been a decline in the market value of goods and services and in employment levels, and the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the situation. Market value had its steepest drop of 19.6 percent from 2019 to 2020, and the industry now employs 50,000 fewer people than ten years ago. The talent pipeline may also be shrinking, with a 30 percent plummet in 2022 from the 2016 peak.
To read the article, see “At a crossroads: New York’s status as a global fashion capital,” September 4, 2024.
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Visual form
Multi-panel chart sequence combining a filled step-style area chart and two line charts.
Layout / body structure
The chart is laid out as three side-by-side panels read from left to right: economic output first, employment second, and fashion-program completions third, with notes tucked inside or beneath each panel.
What is being compared
It compares three different measures of New York City’s fashion industry over time: inflation-adjusted gross regional product, fashion-industry employment, and the number of students completing NYC fashion programs.
Measurement system
The left panel uses dollars in billions, the middle and right panels use thousands, and all three panels use calendar years on the horizontal axis, with the employment panel also showing a dotted projection into 2026.
Visible structure inside the graphic
The left panel uses a dark filled staircase with annual labels running from 2012 to 2022, the middle panel uses a single line that drops sharply and then flattens into a dotted forecast, and the right panel uses a single line that rises slightly before turning down steadily.
Main takeaway from the visual
All three measures are moving in the wrong direction: output fell hard during the pandemic and has only partly recovered, employment has been sliding for years and is not projected to rebound, and the talent pipeline has been shrinking since the middle of the last decade.
Key standout values or extremes
Gross regional product moves from about $24 billion at the start of the period down to a trough of $18 billion before only recovering to $20 billion in 2022; employment falls from roughly 180,000 to about 120,000 before leveling off near the mid-120,000s; program completions slide from roughly 3.8 thousand to about 2.7 thousand.
Controls / sequence, when applicable
This is a static chart image with no in-chart controls to operate.
Companion media, when applicable
There is no separate companion audio or video; the chart image is the full visual on this page.