The World’s Leading Fashion Cities: Who are the Capitals?

Fashion and Geography is synonymous, firmly ingrained in its cultural evolution as well as playing a leading role in a city’s identity. For most of the 20th century, the 'Big Four' – Paris, Milan, London and New York have predominantly been influential fashion centers due to the fact that they are the principal trendsetters: hosting the most important fashion weeks and home to the biggest fashion houses and brands.

In recent times, a slew of new cities emerged challenging their position and ended up becoming what one would call 'Alt Fashion Capitals' or 'Style Centers', that were beyond the so-called 'fashion capitals' and sought to develop their own influence through fashion culture. While 'Style Centres' may be everywhere today, not all cities are equal when it comes to influence and industry importance. Even though globalization has led to the spread of fashion markets more widely – some cities still rule the market when it comes to influence in the industry.

"The so-called ‘Big Four’ – New York, Paris, Milan and London – are still in a dominant position" says Daryl de Jorí, founder of the IFDAQ, on which the rankings, exclusively published in L’Officiel Austria, are based. “Yet, the current IFDAQ Global Fashion & Luxury Cities Index shows a new continuous power distribution with new emerging cities that were able to strengthen their influence in the fashion industry on an international level quite quickly.”

But who are the world’s leading fashion cities? And who takes the lead as most important fashion city? Who are the emerging places and where does Vienna rank?

The IFDAQ Global Fashion & Luxury Cities Index is an excerpt of nearly 1,000 monitored fashion hotspots around the world and constitutes the first scientific and transparent approach to measure the leading fashion cities and to define the leading capitals. More info about the methodology of the Index can be found at the official Index website.