In actual terms, fashion sales across Australia have lifted by $74.3 million between August 2024 and August 2025.
This is according to new data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), which confirms actual clothing, footwear and accessories sales hit $4.08 billion in original terms.
The $74.3 million spending lift in fashion follows a $146.3 million lift in sales for between July 2024 and July 2025, with spending between August 2023 and 2024 lifting $157.7 million.
Spending across all categories grew by $2.65 billion (3.4 per cent) between August 2024 and 2025, hitting $77.7 billion. This includes transport, health and accommodation.
In seasonally adjusted terms, which strips out regular seasonal effects to show the underlying trend, total spending grew 5 per cent.
Retail-specific categories such as food, fashion and department stores grew by 3.7 per cent, clocking $37.8 billion in sales.
The Australian Retailers Association (ARA) and the National Retail Association (NRA) reported that this moderation in recent performance underlines the need for the RBA to stay vigilant in considering a further rate cut this side of Christmas.
Sticking with seasonally adjusted terms, the states of Western Australia (up 5.6 per cent), Queensland (up 4.6 per cent) and Tasmania (up 4.6 per cent) reflected stronger growth, while the Northern Territory (up 4.4 per cent) and South Australia (up 4.0 per cent) recorded reasonable performance.
However, Victoria (up 3.3 per cent), New South Wales (up 2.3 per cent) and the ACT (up 1.6 per cent) all registered subdued performance.
Cafes, restaurants and takeaway experienced the most significant category increase (up 7.0 per cent), followed by ‘Other’ retailing (up 5.6 per cent), household goods retailing (up by 3.7 per cent), department stores and large online retailers (up 3.5 per cent).
Spending marginally increased in food retailing (up 1.9 per cent) and in clothing, footwear and accessories (up 1.8 per cent).
“Overall, this result reflects that retailers continue to face very mixed conditions,” ARA CEO Chris Rodwell said. “It also reveals a reliance on major spending events to stimulate sales.
“Whilst trading remains above overall 2024 levels, unfortunately, August growth dropped back compared to July (up 4.6 per cent yoy) and June (up 4.9 per cent yoy).”
Despite the challenged performance across 2025, December 2024 spending in fashion may offer hope, where actual sales passed $6 billion. This is the highest spending in fashion in any month on record.
In seasonally adjusted terms, fashion sales peaked at $4.335 billion in December 2024, which is only around $1 million more than the seasonally adjusted total spending in fashion for August 2025. In trend terms, spending across clothing, footwear and accessories is growing modestly month on month.
Sticking to month-on-month, total household spending rose just 0.1 per cent in August 2025, following rises of 0.4 per cent in July and 0.5 per cent in June.
“The small rise in August was the fourth increase in a row, and spending has risen in 10 of the last 12 months,” ABS head of business statistics Lauren Binns said.
“Through the year growth remained elevated. Household spending was 5.0 per cent higher than the same time last year.”
Binns added that households spent more on booking airline travel and accommodation services during August. This contributed to a 0.5 per cent rise in ‘Services’ spending. Goods spending, however, fell 0.2 per cent.
Five of the nine spending categories rose in August. This was led by Transport, which rose 0.8 per cent, and was driven by Western Australia and the Australian Capital Territory. Miscellaneous goods and services also rose 0.8 per cent.
The largest falls in spending were for Recreation and culture (down 0.9 per cent) and Alcoholic beverages and tobacco (down 0.9 per cent).
In annual terms, Miscellaneous goods and services (up 8.9 per cent) and Health (up 8.0 per cent) had the largest growth rates in the 12 months to August.
Services spending was 8.1 per cent higher than August 2024, while Goods spending was up 2.5 per cent.
Rodwell continued, saying retailers want improved sales momentum as they enter the all-important peak season, where many discretionary retailers make up to two-thirds of their annual profits.
“However, these results reflect that many Australians still face significant budgetary constraints and that consumer confidence remains subdued,” Rodwell said.
“That’s why we are calling for the RBA to remain vigilant to a pre-Christmas rate-cut to relieve some pressure on households during this important season.
“Running a retail business remains challenging, with rising operational and supply chain costs. Compounding this, the ongoing surge in retail crime across the country imposes additional financial and operational pressures that many retailers simply can’t sustain.”
Rodwell added he and his team continue to call for slashing unnecessary regulation and red tape at both the Federal and State levels. This comes amid surging cost pressures for businesses.
“We need to see a more consistent approach to payroll tax, planning, freight and logistics, environmental and waste regulation, and trading hours. Equally, we’re pushing for a coordinated national strategy to address retail crime, which currently costs the sector an estimated $9 billion annually plus untold emotional distress.”