INDEX INDEX 1ABOUT THIS DOCUMENT 1APPAREL INDUSTRY IN THE GLOBAL WORLD 1Overview of the Apparel Industry 1Overview of the Lifestyle Industry 2Trends of Globalization 3Globalization - Integration of Functional Activities 4REVIEWS AND FORECASTS 55 Year Horizon 510 Year Horizon 5 ABOUT THIS DOCUMENT The pervasiveness of retail in the Western world leaves the sector open to careful analysis. This paper aims to expertly address the global effects on a single retail subsector: specialty apparel. To do this, I will gain perspective by considering all the recent global developments in the industry. First, this paper captures the current environment of the mall lifestyle apparel retail industry and unifies these findings to highlight the effects of globalization on the industry. Secondly, the document projects the future landscape of the sector over a 5 - 10 year horizon; and indicates the actual choices that companies should make to better align with the global industry environment. the total. Competition for these consumer dollars accelerated with the lifting of import quotas on textile and apparel products by most members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in January 2005. The absence of these quotas allows clothing manufacturers to purchase high-quality products from the most reliable suppliers, regardless of their country of origin. However, many apparel retailers and their suppliers will likely want to maintain sourcing diversity to avoid being harmed by so-called safeguard and protectionist agreements (e.g. U...... half of paper ......terialize, we could see some drastic changes in companies' strategies, where they could start to diversify and buy unrelated businesses to recover declining sales. In the long term, I also predict that the industry will move towards more efficient and less fragmented sourcing where the current. quota system does not work do not force companies to choose inefficient supply chains. Rapid technological progress will continue to make the world smaller, more competitive and faster. Therefore, companies' ability to identify and integrate new technology into new models of business will be essential I don't see it as utopian to have tailor-made everyday clothes, where consumers can design clothes with the help of online technology and get them at affordable prices. Apparel companies will become online shopping stores, commoditize and outsource all their key activities except marketing and brand management.