As summer gets underway, men and women are stepping out with dressier wardrobes. U.S. sales for adult tailored clothing and other dress clothing increased by 5 percent from January through April, led by men’s dress shirts, men’s suits and girls’s skirts. In truth, the dress clothing market is larger than it was pre-pandemic, with sales revenue 8 percent higher than 2019 levels, in keeping with Circana, formerly IRI and The NPD Group.

“Hybrid work can be hybrid play,” said Maria Rugolo, apparel industry analyst at Circana. “Dressier trends, coinciding with the return to offices, events, travel and other activities, have consumers mixing and matching how they’re wearing their wardrobes as a mirrored image of the hybrid lifestyle that has grow to be second nature to many. Men and girls are pairing styles together in nontraditional ways, corresponding to from wearing blazers with shorts and energetic pants with dressier tops. This yr, the fusion of casual and dress attire is especially outstanding. People want their apparel to be adaptable.”

In the ladies’s market, sales of dresses showed a slight dip this yr, following a spike last yr, as consumers likely made replenishment purchases. Nevertheless, the marketplace for dresses continues to be 12 percent larger than it was in 2019, and dresses are currently the top-selling clothing items in the general apparel market, in keeping with Circana.

In the lads’s category, higher-priced suits are leading sales within the tailored clothing business and are the very best they’ve been because the pre-pandemic period.