NYFW Makes Almost Twice as Much Money as the Super Bowl

It’s official and written on paper, the U.S. economy kneels in front of New York Fashion Week that brings in almost $900 million a year!

On February 6th, NY Congresswoman Carolyn B. Maloney together with the Joint Economic Committee held a press conference at the Fashion Institute of Technology.

Why? To strike us with the conclusion they’ve come to: the biannual event, New York Fashion Week held in September and February bring to the U.S. economy no less than $887 million!

Even Maloney admitted she was shocked as she confessed to WWD: “As my first report as the ranking Democrat on the Joint Economic Committee, I wanted to do it on fashion, and what I found out blew me away.”

Given the fact that more than 230,000 people attend the Fashion Week every year, the impact of NYFW on the U.S. economy is more than clear as Maloney admits:

Fashion is so much more than style; it’s big business that creates a vast array of good paying jobs

And she knows exactly what she’s saying as they’ve brought in the precise numbers: more than 180,000 people work in the fashion industry, pay $11 billion in wages and generate almost $2 billion in tax revenue each year.

Apparently this reality is striking more and more politicians as the Mayor Bill de Blasio also presented these facts at a conference where he announced New York’s naming a street after Oscar de la Renta.

Ok, so maybe these are just number for you, but let’s make a comparison to get things straight. New York Fashion Week brings more money to the economy than the Super Bowl (around $500 million in 2014), the New York City Marathon (around $340 million) and the U.S. Open (around $700 million).

But how can these numbers be reached? Quite simple, frankly.

Over 900 fashion companies are spread across the streets of New York, therefore the fashion and apparel sectors employ 1.9 million people. But the fashion industry isn’t just bringing New York and Los Angeles to the spotlight, cities like San Francisco, Nashville and Columbus are starting to rise.

But New York remains the leader of the American fashion industry as Steven Kolb, the CEO of CFDA, declared:

It is the major engine behind the $350 billion apparel Industry that employs 4 million workers, which is 3 million more than the car manufacturers – and more than the U.S. video game industry, fast food industry, and beverage industry.

And on top of that, the number of fashion designers working in U.S. has gone up with 50 percent in the last decade and now there are over 17,000 people working on an average salary of $73,600.

So, all of these mean one simple thing that Maloney expressed it best in words: