U.S. Fashion Retail Holds Strong with 5.8% May Increase

Fashion is holding up in the United States. In the fifth month of the year, fashion retail sales in the country have maintained their growth, up 5.8% year-on-year, without adjusting for seasonal or calendar effects, according to data released by U.S. Bureau of Commerce. Fashion retailing thus continues the upward trend of recent months, apparently immune to possible price increases resulting from tariffs.

Specifically, fashion retail turnover stood at $28.04 billion, an increase of $1.529 billion in absolute terms. The good performance also coincides with the trend followed by the sector in recent months, with increases of another 5.8% in April and almost 2% in March.

On a month-on-month basis, the rise in fashion retail sales was even higher, at 13%, compared to the $24,705 million sales recorded by the sector in April. This again translates into an increase of $3.335 billion in absolute terms.

Fashion sales could suffer from the following autumn-winter season onwards

The retail sector has thus accumulated several consecutive months with an acceleration in sales, and remains immune to the announcement of tariffs by U.S. President Donald Trump, which is affecting international trade, especially given the potential price increase.

Despite this apparent resilience, the american fashion companies do foresee an impact on consumption in the long term, which will come to affect annual income statements. In this sense, however, the main estimates date this drop in sales to the following autumn-winter season.

The year-to-date figure is still positive, with fashion retail sales of $117.8 billion between January and May, 3.9% higher than the sector's turnover in the same period of the previous year.

Along with fashion, consumption has remained buoyant in the U.S. economy as a whole. In total, retail sales in the country stood at $753.158 billion, 3.13% higher than in May 2024, with a cumulative annual turnover of $3.4 trillion in the first five months.