On the occasion of the Milan fashion week 2026 (22-28 September), the platform Company reports analyzed over 210 thousand companies in the sector. One percent of companies account for more than half of the turnover, while in 2024 overall revenues fell by 5.5 percent. The first financial statements for 2025 show an initial adjustment.
Milan has the fashion shows and the turnover, Naples has the largest number of companies, Prato the manufacturing. The picture shows a production geography different from that depicted on the catwalks, characterized by a strong concentration of economic value and a fabric of small and medium-sized businesses distributed across the districts.
The geographical distribution of revenues and companies
The province of Milan hosts 4.8 percent of Italian fashion companies, but alone collects 24.3 percent of the sector’s total revenues. The record changes if we consider the overall number of registered businesses. The province of Naples is in first place with 8.7 percent of the companies surveyed.
On a strictly manufacturing level, the data for the municipality of Prato emerges. 5,114 fashion companies are based in the municipal area, a higher number than the sum of the companies present in the municipalities of Milan, Rome and Naples combined, which stop at 4,418.
The analysis reveals similar concentrations in the Florentine area for leather goods, in the Fermo area for footwear and in the tanning districts divided between Tuscany, Campania and Veneto.
The economic concentration of turnover
The widespread presence in the area does not correspond to a homogeneous distribution of income. Within the sample of companies whose financial statements are available, 294 companies, equal to 1 percent of the total, generate 51.4 percent of total revenues.
At the other end are the half of the companies with the lowest turnover, whose overall contribution stops at 2.6 percent of the supply chain’s revenues. The fashion economic system is therefore divided between a small nucleus of large groups and a wide network of specialized micro and small businesses.
The trend of budgets between 2024 and 2025
The financial statements for the period 2021-2024 show a decline in 2024. Overall revenues decreased by 5.5 percent compared to the previous year, with a contraction that affected 58.6 percent of the companies examined. The percentage of loss-making companies went from 19.7 percent in 2023 to 24.7 percent in 2024.
The most marked decline concerned the footwear sector, which in 2024 recorded a decrease in revenues of 13.9 percent. In this sector, 74.4 percent of companies suffered a contraction in revenue and the share of loss-making companies rose from 17.6 to 29.6 percent. The footwear crisis has affected districts such as Fermo, Macerata and Pisa. The first financial statements available for 2025 indicate a stabilization phase, with a change in revenues of +0.5 percent on companies already comparable.
“A very widespread network”
“The data gives the image of a very structured sector: on the one hand, a few large operators
concentrate a significant part of the turnover, on the other hand there is an extremely widespread network of
businesses and territorial specializations. The slowdown recorded in 2024 affected a large part
of the sector, while the first 2025 data suggest a phase of greater stability, which will have to be
confirmed with the availability of a larger number of financial statements”, comments Vincenzo Augurio, CEO of Media Asset spa (Company reports).