New York's Fashion Economy

A recent Informed Reader blog entry on the Wall Street Journal's Web site discusses New Yorker writer James Surowiecki's assessment of a new book, "The Warhol Economy":

While he says Elizabeth Currid’s new book “The Warhol Economy” understates the financial sector’s role in New York’s economy, it accurately shows the city’s unrivalled importance of its cultural businesses—including art, music, fashion, and even night clubs—to the world. The finance industry pays 20% of the city’s wages. But whereas Wall Street’s financial might contends with other centers such as London, New York’s cultural leadership in the world is undisputed, says [the author] Prof. Currid, an assistant professor at the University of Southern California.

I couldn't get access to Surowiecki's New Yorker piece, but I did find this article in the Economist critiquing "The Warhol Economy," which I believe has similar content.

Both of these stories got me thinking about how much the fashion industry contributes to the New York economy specifically. According to NYC TV, the fashion industry in New York consists of about 80,000 jobs—including professionals, manufacturers and importers/exporters. The Garment Industry Development Corporation or GIDC estimates the number of fashion gigs in New York is even higher, at 100,000 (this estimate is verified by a report from the Fashion Center New York City, which puts the industry's employment number around 106,000).

The GIDC Web site cites even more stats about the business, such as:

1). The city's fashion industry has a sales volume of $14 billion, including $12 billion in wholesale apparel sales. New York has eight schools dedicated to fashion, including the Fashion Institute of Technology, which, with over 11,000 students, is the world's largest fashion school.

2). New York City remains the nation's fashion capital, with over 5,000 fashion showrooms.

3). New York remains an important center of garment production, as well as wholesale sales. New York's apparel factories produce 18% of the women's outerwear (dresses, coats, suits, sportswear), and 28% of all the dresses made in the United States.

Although the GIDC's stats may not be 100% accurate (the site says it was last updated in 2001), it gives a general idea of the importance of the fashion industry to the city's economy.

Currid, the author of "The Warhol Economy," argues in her book that New York's culture economy (including fashion) may be in trouble as the city continues to prosper because it forces creative types to flee Manhattan for cheaper rents. As the Economist article explains:

New York's cultural economy has reached a critical juncture, argues Ms Currid, threatened by, of all things, prosperity. The bleak economic conditions of the 1970s allowed artists to flock into dirt-cheap apartments and ushered in the East Village scene of the early 1980s. The boom of the past decade, by contrast, has priced budding Basquiats out of Manhattan, pushing them across the water to Brooklyn and New Jersey. Studio flats meant for artists-in-residence get snapped up by bankers. The closure last year of CBGB, a bar that became a punk and art-rock laboratory in the 1970s (and whose founder, Hilly Kristal, died last month) came to symbolise this squeeze.

To ail this problem, Currid suggests that the city give subsidized housing to up and coming artists, create zoning that helps bring in more night-life and so on.

But is this really necessary? The Economist article aptly points out that although "starving artists" may be starting up their boutiques in Williamsburg, rather than in the city, Manhattan is certainly not starving for its lack of culture.

While the "center of gravity" might be changing (isn't Greenpoint the new Williamsburg? Or by now, is it Bed-Stuy or Bushwick?), the culture will always remain. Fifth Avenue isn't going anywhere, and neither are the boutiques in Soho. Fashion Week will still go twice a year.

New York is already embedded in culture—it's just expanding beyond its typical borders, that's all.

As the city prospers, fashion goes on. It always has, and it always will. Artists have found ways to survive in the past. They should in the future too.