Apparel has gone against the retail trend, achieving sales growth where other areas have seen a decline.
Annual real spending growth for the category was 4.6% for the year, which ended in September.
The cause for the spike has been attributed to the online retail markets strength, the rise of fast fashion retailers and demand for tourism driven luxury apparel.
According to the latest Deloitte Access Economics' Retail Forecasts report, retail sales growth was only 1.2% for year, compared to 3.4% the prior year.
Deloitte Access Economics partner David Rumbens attributed the decline in growth and retail expenditure to the impact of low interest rates and asset inflation.
“We expect that real retail sales growth will remain low over 2016-17 (1.3% growth over the financial year projected), before recovering somewhat to 3.0% over 2017-18.”
Christmas may provide some rebound with an earlier survey from Deloitte (2016 Retailers' Christmas Survey) revealing 76% of respondents were expecting higher sales this holiday season.
However this may come as a result of discounting, with 33% of respondents also stating they expect to start cutting prices on products from early December.