China to overtake US as world's biggest fashion market in 2019

A pedestrian walks past a signboard of Gucci in Shanghai, October 3, 2017. [Photo/IC]

China is expected to overtake the United States as the largest fashion market in 2019, according to a report by McKinsey & Company and media outlet The Business of Fashion.

The wealth of China's nearly 1.4 billion people saw rapid increase, creating new consumer groups who have capacity to spend on sports, entertainment, clothes and shoes, news website Quartz reported, adding it's shaping the way the fashion industry operates.

For example, Italian brand Ermenegildo Zegna now looks to China, instead of the US, as the place for testing new products, before deciding whether to promote them globally.

The website said many luxury brands already depend heavily on Chinese customers, who have for some time been the world's biggest buyers of luxury goods.

Thanks to the ascendance of China's younger shoppers, as well as policies unveiled by the government to encourage domestic consumption, much of that spending is moving back inside the country.

Meanwhile, more Chinese are now embracing homegrown brands. International brands established in the market look to be cooling off, the website said quoting Achim Berg, who leads McKinsey's global apparel, fashion, and luxury practice.

"We also see that local brands are now coming up and becoming players," he said. "I think this desire to only buy international brands in the mid-markets is also waning a bit."

Over the past year, the global fashion industry has reached new heights. The report predicts growth of 4 to 5 percent in 2018, slightly ahead of earlier projections for 2018.