Market for Organic Clothes

Although quite small in comparison to synthethic clothing apparel market, the organic clothes market has been experiencing a 20-25% growth every year. However, with total sales of $240 million globally —about the size of a single mid-level apparel business — and organic cotton representing just .25 percent of the world supply of cotton, organic is still clearly in its infancy with plenty of room to grow.

Rebecca Calahan Klein, president of the Organic Exchange, notes that the number of brands using organic cotton is rising rapidly, from 100 in 2002 to more than 250 in the United States today — well on its way to achieving its goal of converting 10 percent of the world’s demand for cotton to organic cotton by 2013. Holly Givens, communication director of the OTA, reports projections from an OTA manufacturer’s survey that sales of organic apparel will increase by approximately 15.5 percent each year over the next three years, but industry experts expect the figure to more than double that.

Besides a small group of boutique and niche companies in this space, a number of brand name companies have been introducing more and more organic apparel. These companies include include Nike, Patagonia and Timberland.

Organic farming has been particularly advantageous in developing countries for a number of reasons. Organic farming encourages the use of labor, which is in abundant and inexpensive supply in these countries. The conversion to organic farming is also easier because farms in these countries are typically using fewer pesticides to begin with, and the shift away from pesticides, fertilizers and genetically modified seed provides a great financial boost because the costs of these inputs are proportionately much greater for farmers in developing countries than they are for U.S. farmers. Also, the rapid rise of organic food farming in places such as Turkey has encouraged the growing of organic cotton, because organic farming of any sort requires crop rotation.

As one industry analyst puts it: “Organic food has been growing at a rate of 20 percent per year for at least the past 13 years,” she says. “If organic apparel is on the same path, it has a lot of room to grow.”

Read more about the market in the article "Organic Clothing: It's Not Just for Tree Huggers Anymore" by JORDAN K. SPEER