Fashion industry: an interesting career option in NYC?

As I plan to take advantage of my relocation to explore new career opportunities in New York (as a PR professional of course), I have an interest in exploring the different business areas that are part of the city’s Landscape. The first industry I decided to do some research on is fashion; and what an interesting world!

A vital business area
Everyone knows it: the fashion industry is and has always been an important part of New York City’s job market and economy. Even if it has faced many challenges these past years because of the financial crisis, the industry is doing well and is still a major business sector, currently employing around 165,000 people and representing 5.5% of the city’s workforce.

Many specific sectors to choose from
New York’s fashion includes different communities that are all inter-connected. First, New York’s Fashion Week is a world renowned semi-annual event that generates a lot of media exposure for the City. It is, with Paris, London and Milan, one of the major fashion weeks held around the world. The wholesale sector, which includes approximately 75 trade shows annually, but also buyers, showrooms and designers, is another very important actor of the industry. It has recently been identified as the City’s most promising sub-sector of the fashion industry for growth. Finally, fashion retail and manufacturing are also part of the city’s fashion dynamic as NYC’s fashion retail market is among the largest of the country and Fashion manufacturing represents around 30% of all manufacturing jobs in the Big Apple.

A promising future for the industry
There is also encouraging news for NYC’s fashion industry: these past years, New York City has given birth to a strategic plan for fashion business: FashionNYC2020 is an analysis of the industry’s challenges and has been designed to help the City focus on its competitive advantages to maintain its status as a global fashion capital. In 2010, New York City’s mayor announced six initiatives to support the growth of the City’s fashion industry. Among them financial help for start-ups, the creation of a comprehensive website, NYCFashionInfo.com, built to assist retailers, manufacturers and emerging designers in making great business connections, and New York City Fashion Draft, an initiative created to ensure that fashion is perceived as an interesting option for business students. It really looks like fashion has a promising future in the Big Apple…

For more info: 
Wikipedia page about the Garment District of NYC
New York City Fashion Industry Snapshot 2011 
The Fashion Center
Made in Midtown (Garment District Website) 

Did you ever work in the fashion industry? What did you like / dislike about it?