Australia’s fashion industry has seen a bounce-back in spending in May 2025, according to new data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
Seasonally adjusted sales across clothing, footwear and accessories hit $3.09 billion in May 2025, up from a slump of $3.00 billion in April, and is up by over $100 million compared to May last year.
Despite the bump up, ABS trending indicates fashion spending has plateaued.
The recent bounce-back in fashion, alongside a similar ricochet across department stores retailing, has helped keep retail spending elevated, up by 0.2 per cent month-on-month and by 3.3 per cent year-on-year.
“Clothing retailers and department stores were boosted by people buying winter clothes, having held off on those purchases with the warmer-than-usual weather last month,” ABS head of business statistics Robert Ewing said.
Within fashion, clothing retailing sales lifted by $70.2 million, with footwear and other accessory retailing up by $17.3 million.
The overall month-on-month results across all retail were dragged down by a 0.4 per cent fall in spending across food retailing, and a 0.2 per cent slip in ‘other retailing’, which includes hairdressers and beauty. Household goods retailing and cafes, restaurants and takeaway food services saw flat growth.
In year-on-year terms all categories recorded lifts, led by ‘other retailing’ which recorded the largest increase in sales, up 4.78 per cent, followed by cafes, restaurants and takeaway (up 3.83 per cent), and department stores (up 3.71 per cent).
Australian Retailers Association (ARA) CEO Chris Rodwell said while May results are encouraging, retail spending overall remains subdued.
“May growth is slightly lower than what we’ve seen in recent months, however performance continues to track modestly above 2024 growth levels,” Rodwell said. “While inflation has metered back, with the CPI figure for May coming in at 2.1 per cent, consumer confidence remains soft.”
Rodwell said it is clear that retail is far from recovery, and has called on the Reserve Bank of Australia to cut interest rates to help bolster spending in the second half of 2025.
“We also know that sales results are only part of the story with retailers continuing to battle higher business costs across leasing, wages, energy, insurance and the supply chain,” Rodwell said. “That’s why we’re focused on governments doing what they can to improve productivity outcomes and reduce the impacts of regulation and compliance burden.
“Retailers need to be free to run their business and compete with rising global competition.
“Retail recovery is intrinsic to our economic recovery. As a sector which employs one in ten Australians, we want to shift gears to see retailers move out of survival mode into truly thriving and helping power our economy.”