Higher cotton prices and rising labour costs in China will force US retailers to lift the price of clothes this year by up to 15 per cent compared with 2010, according to Fitch.
The credit rating agency said that US consumers, already confronting rising food and fuel prices, would face a sharp increase in the price of apparel as retailers grapple with the first prolonged bout of cotton inflation since the 1990s.
The price rises, which will affect brands ranging from North Face to Levi’s, are signalling the end of a two-decade era in which clothing costs declined as western manufacturers shifted more production to low-cost emerging markets.
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