World

Europe: fashion brands don't share geographical location with manufacturing

Jun 14, 2022 Europe

When looking into the location of the main brands and manufacturing businesses of the European TCLF industry (Textile, Clothing, Leather and Footwear), one easily concludes about the existence of a dichotomy between brands and production

Manufacturing and branding are two different businesses and they do not share the geographical location within Europe's borders. This was the main outcome of an analysis made by the World Footwear on the location of the main manufacturing and retailing companies in the TCLF business in Europe.

After analysing the data, we have concluded that there is a clear dichotomy between brands and production: factories of the TCLF industry are usually based in one region (where they create employment) and brands are usually in another different region.

If one looks into the regions with the highest concentration of manufacturing businesses (measured by number of employees) one can easily see that most of these regions have no global brands headquartered inside their geographical borders, despite being major manufacturing players.

For example, the North region of Portugal, where most of the clothing, textiles and footwear companies are located within the country, is the largest employer of the European TCLF panorama, making it the most important region in terms of employment in these industries. However, this region is home to no global brand.

The European Fashion Map

Main regions of the TCLF industry

If we look into the Top 15 regions with the largest number of people employed by the TCLF industry, as presented in the table below, we will find many of the most relevant European players in the manufacturing business in Europe: Bulgaria, Italy, Portugal, Romania and Spain. A note to underline that the Norte region (41%) and Toscana (36%), along with Marche (23%), are the 3 regions with the higher concentration of TCLF industries in the total number of manufacturing companies.