Girls store for clothes from a Hole outlet retailer in Los Angeles, California on April 10, 2025.
Frederic J. Brown | Afp | Getty Pictures
Few shopper merchandise are immune from the influence of latest tariffs on goods imported into the United States, however attire could also be among the many hardest hit.
A commerce warfare may considerably increase the worth of clothes for customers. Since a big portion of U.S. clothes and sneakers are imported, tariffs on these items would enhance the price for each the importers and, in the end, the buyer, consultants say.
“The 2025 tariffs disproportionately have an effect on clothes and textiles, with customers dealing with 64% increased attire costs within the short-run,” in line with forecasts by the Yale College Finances Lab. “Attire costs will keep 27% increased within the long-run.”
For now, the Trump Administration has opted for a common tariff fee of 10%. Earlier this month, the White Home imposed 145% tariffs on merchandise from China. President Donald Trump just lately granted exclusions from steep tariffs on smartphones, computer systems and another electronics imported largely from China.
“We’re involved in regards to the escalating commerce warfare with China. Finally nobody wins,” mentioned Julia Hughes president of the United States Fashion Industry Association.
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“This coverage continues to topic U.S. imports of our business’s largest buying and selling companion to an unsustainable tax,” Steve Lamar, the American Attire & Footwear Affiliation’s president and CEO, mentioned in a ready assertion.
Tariffs, notably on clothes and supplies, which aren’t made at scale within the U.S., will result in increased costs for customers and can solely gasoline inflation, in line with the American Attire & Footwear Affiliation.
The U.S. receives 97% % of clothes and sneakers from different international locations, however primarily China and Vietnam, a 2024 report by the American Attire & Footwear Affiliation discovered.
Tariffs ‘can be handed alongside to the buyer’
“Tariffs are a tax paid by the U.S. importer that can be handed alongside to the tip shopper. Tariffs is not going to be paid by overseas international locations or suppliers,” the Nationwide Retail Federation’s government vp of presidency relations, David French, mentioned in a press release.
As a part of the brand new excessive tariffs on China, Trump additionally revoked a popular tax loophole generally known as de minimis. The exemption allowed many e-commerce firms to ship items price lower than $800 into the U.S. duty-free. The loophole additionally allowed American customers to purchase low-cost items immediately from retailers in China and Hong Kong.
Some standard clothes manufacturers, like Shein and Temu imported from China, may face a right away influence and can possible funnel these additional prices to prospects in the best way of upper costs, which might hit low- and middle-class Individuals notably exhausting.
How customers plan to cushion the blow
Three-quarters of customers mentioned they’re already participating in “trade-down” conduct when buying clothes and footwear, in line with current analysis by Empower.
Within the years since excessive inflation made clothing more expensive, a shift was already beginning.
Buyers downgraded to extra reasonably priced secondhand merchandise and embraced buying “dupes” — brief for duplicates.
“If you cannot afford Louis Vuitton, you will purchase Coach. If you cannot afford Coach, you will purchase the knock off,” mentioned Shawn Grain Carter, an affiliate professor on the Style Institute of Expertise, a part of the State College of New York.
Traditionally, commerce restrictions drive up the price of genuine items, creating the proper situations for counterfeiters to flood the market with cheaper, harder-to-detect fakes, in line with Vidyuth Srinivasan, co-founder and CEO of Entrupy, an authentication service.
With Trump’s current government order eliminating duty-free de minimis therapy for low-value imports, the stream of counterfeit items will even be dearer and logistically difficult, Srinivasan defined.
Nonetheless, “counterfeiters are extremely agile,” he mentioned. “When one route is blocked, they’re going to adapt, looking for various distribution channels to proceed flooding the market with fakes.”
Alternatively, “there could be slightly extra of a lean into the secondhand market as a result of it simply appears extra reasonably priced,” Srinivasan mentioned.
Faced with higher costs, 67% of customers plan to vary their procuring habits, in line with one other current report by Bid-on-Gear. Among the many high methods, 46% say they are going to store at thrift or secondhand shops. Different methods to save lots of embrace comparability procuring or shopping for fewer imported items. The survey polled greater than 1,000 adults in January.
In one other survey by procuring app Smarty, 50% of respondents mentioned they’re extra more likely to contemplate secondhand items or native options due to tariff-induced worth hikes.
“Tariffs are already prompting my prospects to much more actively search options in terms of luxurious designer items,” mentioned Christos Garkinos, the CEO and founding father of on-line reseller Covet By Christos.
“On the one hand, prospects who want to make some more money on this unstable financial system are contemplating promoting off components of their designer collections,” Garkinos mentioned.
“On the flip aspect, so lots of my present prospects are doubling down on resale,” he mentioned, “as a result of they know that there isn’t any tariff to pay they usually can nonetheless get their fingers on luxurious items with out paying that additional premium proper now.”
The U.S. resale market is experiencing important development, with projections indicating it can proceed to increase quickly over the subsequent few years. This development is being pushed by elements like rising shopper choice for secondhand choices, particularly amongst youthful generations, and the growing adoption of on-line resale platforms, consultants say.
Re-commerce — which encompasses the shopping for and promoting of preowned, refurbished or secondhand items — is projected to extend 55%, reaching $291.6 billion by 2029. That may outpace the general retail market, with resale probably accounting for 8% of whole retail by 2029, according to a 2024 report by OfferUp, a web-based market for getting and promoting new and used gadgets.
Nonetheless, there aren’t sufficient secondhand merchandise to fulfill shopper demand, Hughes mentioned. “The portions aren’t there.”
For now, the attire business should wait and see what’s going to occur with potential commerce agreements going ahead, simply as back-to-school stock — one of the vital vital procuring seasons of the yr — is about to start out transport, Hughes mentioned.
“The chaos remains to be rippling by,” she added. “It is a actual time of uncertainty.”
