Credits: FashionUnited ai Consumer prices (April) Clothing prices in China rose +1.5 percent year-on-year in April 2026 per the National Bureau of Statistics of China (NBS), just above the +1.2 percent headline rate. Unlike most European markets, where clothing inflation runs below the overall index, Chinese fashion inflation sits modestly above headline — a pattern it shares this spring with the United States, Japan and Sweden — though the gap narrowed to 0.3 percentage points from 0.6 in March. Within the basket, garments rose +1.6 percent and footwear +1.0 percent, while clothing dipped 0.3 percent month-on-month in the usual spring softening. Year-to-date clothing inflation stands at +1.7 percent. Retail sector (April) Chinese consumption cooled sharply in April. Total retail sales of consumer goods were CNY 3,724.7 billion, up just +0.2 percent year-on-year per NBS — a steep deceleration from March's +1.7 percent. Fashion held up better than the total but also slowed: the "clothes, shoes, hats and textiles" line for large above-designated-size enterprises grew +3.6 percent nominal year-on-year to CNY 110.8 billion, down sharply from March's +7.0 percent; deflated by clothing CPI of +1.5 percent, that is roughly +2 percent real, a fraction of March's near +5 percent. Online fashion lost steam too. Online retail of clothing grew +6.8 percent year-to-date through April per NBS, down from +11.6 percent through March — implying a weak April for online apparel — while overall online goods retail ran at +5.7 percent. The April readings together point to a marked softening of Chinese…
