Business of Fashion, Textiles & Technology: Summary Report: Mapping the UK Fashion, Textiles and Technology Ecosystem

The UK fashion, apparel and textiles industry is a globally competitive growth sector. The 2015 Value of Fashion report by Oxford Economics, commissioned by the British Fashion Council, found that the direct economic value of a flourishing sector including retail, manufacturing and textiles was £28.1 billion – and calculated its indirect impact at a further £22.6 billion, making a total contribution to gross domestic product of over £50 billion[3]. However, it is less well understood than other creative industries. The final product is generally perceived as catwalk-related in some way. In order to shift that perception, the Business of Fashion, Textiles and Technology (BFTT) report considers the fashion, textiles and technology industry as a wide range of intersecting sectors, spanning – quite literally – from agriculture to advertising. To date, the industry has been constrained by lack of innovation in business strategy and the late adoption of technology. These structural factors have severely limited investment in research, development and knowledge exchange within the broader Fashion, Textiles and Technology (FTT) ecosystem. Currently, the industry lacks robust data and compelling evidence compared to other creative industries regarding research and development (R&D) opportunities, business growth options, job creation and investment. Official data sources on the fashion industry are limited to ‘designer fashion’, which is conflated with ‘other design’ activity, and focuses on established brands and large retailers, and unrelated textiles manufacturers. In response to this deficit and to concerns around R&D, identified through the development of the BFTT creative R&D partnership proposal (2017), the BFTT’s first task was to launch a UK-wide survey of the FTT ecosystem (2019). Approximately one year later, the survey consultation (the launch of which preceded Covid-19 and Britain’s exit from the EU) had engaged over 2,400 small, medium and micro businesses (SMEs) and over 100 stakeholders and intermediaries, including industry specialists, trade bodies and workspace providers. The consultation received 814 survey responses and led to 65 stakeholder interviews, making it one of the most extensive baseline studies to date on FTT SMEs. BFTT surveyed and interviewed across the entire UK fashion and wider apparel value chain. Therefore, this report for the first time positions the UK sector as not weighted toward fashion only. It illustrates the textile, materials and technology elements as key parts of this ecosystem and shows the industry is highly heterogeneous, made up of intersecting textiles and technology companies that inform an array of multiple sectors.