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Page 4
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Jeans
- the changing DNA
by Salman S. Minhas
Jean Facts
Most Valuable Pair Of Jeans
A pair of jean – reported to have
been sold 120 years ago to a worker for $1 – was sold for $46,532
(£33,039) through an Internet auction on eBay on May 25, 2001. Bought by
jean maker Levi Strauss, the jeans was discovered buried in the mud of a
mining town in Nevada and according to historians at Levi's was probably
manufactured in Manchester, New Hampshire, USA, sometime between 1880 and
1885.
Most Expensive Jeans
Gucci "genius jeans" - original Guccis
with African beading, tribal feather trims, and strategically placed rips
and silver metal buttons - were sold in Gucci stores for $3,134 after their
launch in Milan, Italy, in 1998. Although original Guccis, they were sent to
a distressing plant to be faded and ripped, taking up to two weeks to sew
the multicolored beaded trims and hand-stitch the feather embroidery.
Number of Jeans per person
According to Cotton Inc. [US cotton industry trade institution], the
average American male owns seven pairs of jeans, and buys two per year. In
Western Europe, this number is four owned and one bought because of the
wider range of "dress up" garments, says VF Corporation [maker of
Lee, Wrangler Jeans].
Jeans Market
1.93 billion units sold in 2003
1 pair of Jeans sold for every 3
persons globally.
Retail market for Jeans is
US$54.6 billion.
The western world [14 %
population] consumes 64 % of the Jean world market.
Jeans growth areas are China, India, Far East, Middle–East and South Asia,
at commodity /low prices which consumers can afford.
Jeans 2010
The forecasts for 2010 Jeans in volume terms is as follows: the western,
developed world growth will be static, remaining at 1240 million units [1.24
billion jeans] .The rest of the world will grow by 13 per cent to 783
million units. In total this means that world volume growth will be 4.8 %,
making it a total of about 2.1 billion jeans.
Winners & Losers
Brand names are losing in volume terms, and own-label retailers are winning.
The jeans design, branding and marketing game has started to change. It is
no longer the western designers and brand names that are making the waves in
the middle to upper fashion brands. Local designers in India and China and
Japan are coming forward with their own brand names [Arvind – Newport and
Flying Machines, Evisu, etc]. As far as the retail industry is concerned,
polarization will continue to be the main driver.
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