As the article The Economic Impact of the Fashion Industry states “Fashion is a $1.2 trillion global industry.” At then end of the day, a designer designs clothing and the consumer will buy the product if they like it, that itself is a measure of the designers success. If times are tough, for example if theres a recession then fashion trends start to reflect the hardship of the time. Yet if we look at the economic situation currently, after Trump winning presidency the stock market is doing great which means consumers are happy and that would mean they are willing to spend, to splurge. So it would be my educated guess that fashion trends would lean towards more extravagant and more lavish styles. That is just one potential example of a direct relationship between economics and fashion trends.

There are numerous indirect and direct relationships in my opinion between economics and fashion trends. Sometimes fashion trends are more artistic reflections to whats going on in terms of current events, for example the grunge period during the Bush presidency was a rebellion to the previously popular super polished look. During the Clinton presidency, NAFTA took affect and the EU was formed and a there was just a lot of deficit reduction, meaning that commerce was increasing and stimulating wealth. This was correlated with the rise of denim, high end raw denim perhaps there is a correlation? Regardless, correlation does not prove causation. Sometimes economics impacts trends, or music, or art or other current events.

In terms of focusing on New York City and the fashion trends here, New York holds the status of a global fashion capital with over 900 fashion companies, huge amounts of attention to all the events around fashion week. Because NYC is a fashion hub, a productive center for top fashion designers, wholesalers, retailers and  it would be one of the first places to analyze the change of trends. In NYC, fashion is a $98 billion industry their wholesale market for 27% of the US wholesale market., and as the article mentions that hubs and clusters starts to “research shows there are economic benefits when businesses in a particular industry cluster together in close proximity.” As I mentioned before in regards to how economics have a relationship with fashion trends, this is applicable to almost any place in the United States but more specifically places like New York and Los Angeles. I guess, New York would just be a place we would really start to see these trends start emerging and notice the public opinion.