Fashion Sales in the UK Turn Negative Again With 3.4% Decline in May

Black month for fashion in the UK. In the fifth month of the year, retail sales of clothing, footwear and textiles in the United Kingdom have closed the period returning to a negative evolution. Turnover in the fashion retail sector ended May with a year-on-year fall of 3.4%, after several consecutive months of growth, according to data published today by the country's Office for National Statistics (ONS).

The drop, the worst recorded by fashion since November of the previous year, contrasts with the rise in turnover that fashion had accumulated in March and April. After starting 2025 in negative territory, with a drop of 2.8% in January, and maintaining a flat performance in February, retail sales began to grow in March, by 1.5% year-on-year, after revision of the data, and by as much as 5.3% in April.

By segments, the evolution has been negative in both fashion apparel and footwear retail sales, although uneven. Apparel sales, on the one hand, recorded a 2.1% decline in May, compared to the 1.8% and 7.3% increases recorded in March and April, respectively. In the case of footwear, retail sales of these products fell by up to 7%, following April's negative evolution of another 1.9%.

Fashion sales in the United Kingdom have aggravated the fall in the retail sector as a whole

By volume, sales in the sector were also down another 3.4% year-on-year. At the end of May, the volume of garments sold was down 2.3% on the same month last year, while footwear sales were down 5.4%.

The fall in fashion has aggravated part of the decline in turnover in the country's retail sector as a whole, which ended May with a negative evolution of 1.2%, according to the same data from the national statistics office. This is, in fact, the first decline in 2025 in the turnover of the retail sector, which had accumulated increases in January (0.9%), February and March (1.6%) and April (5%).

Trade instability has finally begun to take its toll on the sector, which is facing rising inflation and consumer resentment around the world. The agenda for UK retailers, moreover, has been marked in recent months by an increase in cyber-attacks, as well as a new national budget that will increase some of the main spending items for retailers.