Industry Overview
The fashion accessory industry is on the verge of complete metamorphosis. The global clothing accessories industry generated total revenues of approximately US $74.9 of the overall industry value. The accessories industry growth in 2006 initiated fierce competition in the sector.


Bags and Purses : The bags and purses sector is an important segment of the fashion accessories industry. Bags are made up of many fabrics like cotton, denim, polyester, nylon etc but most of the bags and purses are made up of leather. Globally, the top eight countries manufacturing and exporting bags and purses includes China, India, Vietnam, Pakistan, Philippines, Germany, Hong Kong and Indonesia. The table below shows the total sales for all principal products of the sector.

Category	2005	2006
Briefcases/ executive cases	5,782	5,487
Handbags	12,707	26,190
Travelling bags	9,867	10,737
Others	4,773	1,612

Footwear : Footwear is an article used to cover the feet and is used for protection, hygiene and for style. Fashion footwear can be sub-divided as boots, clogs, sandals, etc.Footwear is available in a number of designs and materials like leather, plastic, wood etc. The global footwear sector has undergone major transition during the 1990s, resulting in the transfer of global footwear production from traditional producing countries to China, Brazil, Indonesia and to Central & Eastern Europe. The major manufacturing hubs of footwear are USA, Hong Kong and Germany. The table below shows the export statistics of footwear in 2006.

Country	Exports in Billion $
China	19,052,503
Italy	8,859,980
Hong Kong	6,144,490
Belgium	2,522,321
Germany	2,421,873
Spain	2,189,177
Brazil	1,979,367

Exports of Footwear in 2006

Watches : The global watch market, currently valued at US $ 26.5 billion dollars, saw the Swiss majors and China exhibit significant growth of 9% and 7% respectively, but in sharp contrast, the Japanese players experienced a period of stagnation. The largest manufacturers of watches are China, Hong Kong, Thailand, Australia, USA, India, Greece and Peru.

Industry Challenges
The global fashion accessory industry is on the threshold of a large-scale transformation. Several factors responsible for ths are:

• Steep increases in raw material prices,
• Over capacity and competition,
• Changes in consumer buying power in key markets,
• Emergence of new markets,
• Increasing consumer consciousness and
• More vigilant governments and regulators
  
  

Sustenance and growth will require an insight into macroeconomic / industry dynamics, vision and foresight, intense action bias and a readiness to change. Combine these imperatives with the fact that the industry is more globally integrated than ever before, and we face the urgent need for strategic rethinking at the level of the global fashion accessory industry.

Future Prospects
There is a lot of competition from the Asia pacific countries because of which, US based companies are competing on quality rather than price and are also diversifying their products. Use of latest machines has increased production. New marketing strategies and advertising techniques are employed to attract customers. The future outlook of the accessories industry is very bright, as people are becoming more fashion savvy resulting in an increase in demand for these products. The standard of living and the purchasing power of the people is increasing, more and more people especially of the younger age group are spending more on these articles to adorn their wardrobe.
Fashion Jewelry
Fashion jewelry is nothing but a replica of jewelry crafted out of materials like ivory, lac, leather and semi precious stones. There are many types of fashion jewelry based on the material used like aluminium jewelry, brass jewelry, lac jewelry, leather jewelry, ivory jewelry, silver plated jewelry, beaded jewelry, stone jewelry, teracotta jewelry, etc. Fashion jewelry is also known by the names like costume jewelry, designer jewelry, imitation jewelry etc.

Fashion Jewelry Industry
The Jewelry industry can truly be termed as a global industry, because raw materials are derived from Australia, Africa, Russia and Canada, manufacturing takes place in China, India, Italy and Turkey whereas the largest retail markets of jewelry are USA, Europe, Far East, Middle East and Asia. The three most important activities related to this industry are mining, polishing and retailing. This industry has underwent many changes since the beginning of this millenium and this is due to a lot of factors affecting the industry like a steep rise in raw material prices, changing consumer patterns and imposition of a lot regulations by the government. The various products produced by this industry can be categorised as bracelets, brooch, earrings, necklaces, chokers, bangles, finger rings, toe rings, anklets, pendants etc. The material used in manufacturing these jewelry pieces include semi-precious stones, beads, ivory, lac, leather, terracotta, plastic and pearl. Metals like Silver, aluminum, brass, etc are generally used in its manufacturing. New variations of jewelry have also come up in the form of costume jewelry, designer jewelry, imitation jewelry, etc. which are more stylish and trendy than the original gemstone jewelry.

Global Trade Volume and Trends
The size of the global fashion jewelry industry was approximately 146 billion US dollars by the end of the year 2006. Since 2000 this industry has been growing at an average compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.2%. These figures show that the fashion jewelry industry is growing at a very rapid pace and is set to become one of the most important industries in the world. This growth trend can be shown with the help of a graph below:

Among all types of jewelry the designer jewelry is the largest segment of the industry with an approximate growth rate of US$ 69 billion and a CAGR (Compounded Annual Growth Rate) of 5% over the last 6 years. It is followed by the plain costume jewelry segment, which had the total retail sale of 60.7 billion US $. The gold jewelry segment has shown the fastest growth rate of 5.5% mainly due to a steep rise in the prices of gold.

Major Consumers and Market Share
The sale of fashion jewelry is mainly concentrated in eight of the world’s largest markets, which together constitute three fourths of the total sales of jewelry. USA is the largest market for fashion jewelry and had a share of 31% of the total global fashion jewelry sales in the 2006.


The other important markets are China, India, Japan, Middle East, Italy, United Kingdom and Turkey. India and China have shown a great rise in sales during the past five years.


Industry Challanges
Many social and economic forces are leading to a transformation in the fashion jewelry industry. Some of the factors hindering the growth of the fashion jewelry industry in the world are:

• Due to a shortage in the supply of raw materials, there is a steep hike in the prices which has led to a great competition among the countries where polishing takes place. This has led to a shortage in the supply of polished semi-precious stone and thereby creating a shortage for manufacturers of finished jewelry and thus the whole supply chain is affected.
  
  
• Changing fashion trends and increased consciousness of the consumers has resulted in competition among the major manufacturing nations, and also shifting of the industry to low labor cost countries.
  
  
• Retailing sector has also been affected due to competition from other luxury goods, declining investment in the sector (largely in the developed economies) and increasing consumer sophistication.

Future Prospects
The future scenarios for the global fashion jewelry industry, based on the recent trends, are that the mining countries will capture a huge share of the polishing sector as well. Substitutes of precious stones such as synthetic diamonds and non-precious metals will replace the precious stones. The plain gold jewelry sales will keep on declining and China and India will emerge as large retail markets.

Based on the above trends the projections for growth of jewelry industry are as follows:

• The growth in sales of the industry as a whole will slow down and the world will notice the emergence of new markets. The global fashion jewelry sales will grow at the rate of 4.6% annually and is estimated to reach US $ 185 billion by 2010 and US $ 230 billion in 2015. China and India together will emerge as equivalent to the US market in 2015.
  
  
• Jewelry fabrication services will also show sluggish demand and will move to new centers. The CAGR of global fashion jewelry fabrication is estimated to be 5.1% by 2015. China and India will be the new centers for jewelry fabrication.
  
  
  
  Figure 4: Projected global fashion jewelry sales (2010,2015), USD billion
  
  
• Lowering margins in profit and debt levels in the industry will help to build up the fashion jewelry industry.
  
  
• By the year 2015, the fashion jewelry industry will witness the emergence of a number of giant markets, which will be the industry leaders of the future.

The future of fashion jewelry industry lies in the developing countries and primarily China and India. The African countries producing raw materials will also benefit from the expansion of these markets. Thus on the whole the future for the industry is bright but still certain steps need to be taken by the key players to increase supply of raw materials and reform the supply chain.