I-style in the US: figures for January/October 2005

Based on data from the American Department of Commerce, Ice has published the results of the January/October 2005 period for exports to certain major I-Style sectors in the United States.

Still penalized compared to the same period 2004, the exports of knitwear (-10.5%), footwear (-7%) and jewelry (-5.6%). Against the first ten months of 2004, apparel (barely +0.5%) broke even, but within the same sector performance was excellent for women's shirts (+14.4%) and neckties (+6.4%). A good result also for leatherwear (+5.1%) and furs (+20.9%) compared to the same period 2004.

The most dynamic sector compared to January/October 2004 was still perfumes and cosmetics with an increase of almost 19 percentage points (+18.9%) in exports to the US.

Stateside, eyewear held onto the positive trend of the second half of 2004. The driving force continues to be sunglasses, with over 291 million dollars in exports and growth of 18.4% compared to January/October 2004. However, the downturn in frames was almost 2.9%.

As to Italian eyewear's share of the US market, the sector's major reference market, sunglasses stood at around 33.6%, growth of over two percentage points against the same period 2004; frames are steady at about 30%, in line with the 2004 result.