Fall in denim jeans imports into US continues in 2008

My last post regarding imports of Men’s/Boys’ jeans into US in 2007 was a little delayed . Hence I thought it would be in place to expedite the data for the first quarter of 2008.
The fall in import figures that we saw in the year 2007 continues in the year 2008 – and more alarmingly.
The fall is to the tune of about 10% and is quite alarming

IMPORTS OF MEN’S AND WOMEN’S JEANS INTO USA IN Ist QUARTER 2008

Period	Women’s/Girls Jeans(million pcs)	Men’s/Boys Jeans(million pcs)	Total
2007 Ist Quarter	46.24	49.28	95.52
2008 Ist Quarter	42.74	43.94	86.68
Fall in %	7.56%	10.83%	9.25%

Thus we see continous fall in imports of BOTH MEN’S and WOMEN’S jeans into USA. Is this a sign of Denim Overload setting in with consumers trying to experiment with products ?

Men’s Jeans imports into US down 6.82% in 2007

Compared to 2006 , the imports of Men’s Jeans into US has fallen 6.82% from 293 million pieces to about 273 million pieces in 2007.
The fall was consistent through the various quarters of 2007(as I mentioned last year) . The table below shows the figures of imports from various countries
IMPORTS OF MEN’S JEANS INTO USA (IN 2007) FROM DIFFERENT COUNTRIES

Country

Country	Million Pcs	Percentage Share
Mexico	97.71	35.66
Bangladesh	24.04	8.77
Pakistan	15.02	5.48
Honduras	14.35	5.23
China	13.32	4.86
Egypt	12.79	4.66
Cambodia	11.88	4.33
Costa Rica	11.79	4.30
Lesotho	9.90	3.61
Hongkong	6.54	2.38
Nicaragua	6.31	2.30
Guatemala	5.47	1.99
India	1.84	0.67
Jordan	1.57	0.57

Total Imports of Mens Jeans in 2007:: 273.93 million pcs
Source:US Customs

Some points are worth noting from the table:
a)Mexico still retains its position as number 1 exporter despite falling share.
b)China is yet to make a significant mark in the US men’s jeans market.
c)Bangladesh has continued to make progress and has aquired a sizeable 9% share of the market.
However, its big neighbour India still has an insignificant share of 0.67% and it shows that India is
not competitive in this product.
d)Small countries like Lesotho have made great use of Sub-saharan treaties to increase exports to US
e)Egypt has gained a great share at the cost of Jordan due to benefits extended to it. Jordan has lost the share due to its rising costs.

Denim Search Engine – search jobs,brands,buyers,blog and forum posts etc

What do you do when :

a)You need to find about Denim brands or
b)You need to find Denim buyers to sell your fabric and garments or
c)You need to study about the Trends in Denim or
d)You need a job related to Denim in(say) New York or Delhi or
e)You have any other denim related queries..

Well, for me, I used to go to Google and hope to find some answer. Or I would to visit some denim forums or blogs and try to search them individually. By the time I would find any answer, I would be totally exhausted and probably give up many times..

As I earlier mentioned, it seems to be much easier to SEARCH ANYTHING ON DENIM ..
Just visit the Denim Search Engine at DENIMSEARCHENGINE.COM . I use it regularly for searching various denim related articles and I thought it might come in handy to others as well..This engine SEARCHES ONLY DENIM RELATED WEBPAGES

How do I use this Search Engine ?

a)To find which Denim Brands(well known) has created Color Jeans,I would just
make a search ‘Color’ and click on ‘DENIM BRANDS’ label in the search results and get this result
and I would know that the brands that have come out with color denims.

b)If I need to find a job in New York for a denim designer, I would just search ‘NewYork Designer’ and in the search result, I would CLICK on ‘DENIM JOBS’ label and instantly get this list of denim jobs in New York
c)Buyers –Since nobody employed me , I decided to export some denims to USA and searched ‘USA’ and in the search results, I clicked on ‘DENIM BUYERS’ and I found a long list of buyers (on various sites) who had current enquiries on Denim
d)Recent articles : I sometimes need to know what kind of posts people are making about various brand names. But it is difficult to find in reverse order – the date of posts . Now, suppose in this engine, I search for ‘DVB’..In the search results, I click on ‘RECENT4) and I get the latest posts related to DVB brand. It kind of enables one to keep track of what people are saying about your brand.This link shows posts/articles related to DVB and mentions even the Hour when they were posted. Also I can check out if some top news sites have made a mention regarding DVB and I click on the label ‘TOP NEWS SITES’ and I find that Reuters had made a mention a few days ago
e)Denim Blogs : It is interesting to search any term and then click on ‘DENIM BLOGS’ label in the search results. It gives an idea what top denim bloggers (including myself ) think about that search term..No need now to search all these different blogs to find any relevant articles.

Some Interesting Searches
Checkout some interesting search results from this engine :
a)Denim jobs in London,Milan
,New York,Los Angeles,Bangalore: Just searched for this city(eg London) and clicked on ‘Denim Jobs’ label on the search results page.
b)Skinny Jeans from various brands :Just searched for Skinny Jeans and clicked on ‘Denim Brands’ label on the search results page.
c)High waisted jeans from different brands:I Just searched ‘High Waisted’ and clicked on ‘Denim Brands’ label on search result page.
d)Check what the Denim forums are saying about Evisu: I just searched Evisu and clicked on ‘Denim Forums’ on search results page.
e)Or I may like to find what are the most recent views/news about Samurai Jeans on the net
So the list is endless..Just keep on searching Anything and Everything about denim.
In case some of you use the engine and face any problems, let me know and I will help you out.

Evisu Spring Summer ‘09 Collection -its the ‘Sea’ and ‘Lee’.

Evisu Deluxe Spring Summer ‘09 collection follows the first voyage of a Japanese ship sailing to America (in 1860).It draws from the historical references of the time and tries to combine the best of Japanese and American tailoring..As the Evisu blog mentions, the ‘tailoring is inspired by the naval details such as shaped patch pockets,a high buttoning reefer jacket,sailor collars and wide legged cuffed trousers’ .
The denim collection is also inspired by the LEE brand(H.D Lee company was founded in 1889). The collection uses a newly developed selvedge denims including No.13LEFT- a Japanese woven reproduction of the denim fabrics used by LEE 1910s onwards.Jeans cut from 13LEFT denim have the leather patch sewn on the left side of the waistband.

Sea Washed(!) : The jeans have been hand washed in the sea and dried on the rocks nearby.This means that the washing effects will be subtle and denim will be hard (no chemicals to soften the denim are used).’Whiskering’ and ‘honeycombing’ will come with time as the jeans wears out..Exclusive tailoring is used whereby each jeans is tailored by a single operator who signs each completed pair(if I am correct -Earnest Sewn also uses such tailoring techniques to ensure quality).
The overall effect of all the above mentioned techniques would probably give a clean ,natural looking jeans with somewhat trouser looks. Here is a Evisu’s SS09 Milan Spring Summer Video

Related Links on Evisu:
Evisu Autumn Winter ‘08 Milan Men’s Show
Evisu Autumn Winter’08 Milan Show Video
Backstage photos at Milan ‘09 Show