Abstract
In an analysis concerning European Consumer trends that I found on Mintel confirmed my feelings; showing that French consumers consider themselves much more fashion conscious and have a look at style at first when buying clothes, even for babies (61,3% look at style first against 41,4% of British consumers) . That is maybe why the offer for baby wear in France seem to me to be much more fashion oriented and look like adult's fashion than in England where there is a real baby fashion, very different from adults', that look much more dressy and would be worn mainly for occasions in France. That was confirmed when I asked some French mothers about what they look at first when buying garments for their babies: 7 out of 10 told me that style was the most important thing and then practicability and comfort. Also, the structure of the market is quite different: in France baby wear retailers are mainly little stores, independent or franchisees, like Petit Bateau meanwhile in Britain there are big stores like Mamas and Papas that also sell accessories like buggies or even furniture. I also noticed that British consumers tend to shop more in their favorite high street fashion retailers like H&M, Next or Gap for their babies than in France, where it is not really developed yet.
It is to be noticed first that France is ranked 2nd among countries with high birth rate, behind Ireland, with more than 800.000 births per year and with 1.92 children per woman (European average is 1.40).
Since 2000, the time of the last big baby boom in France and more particularly 2003, French need for baby wear has increased significantly (around +2% per year ) meanwhile women's wear has remained same and menswear has drop. The baby wear market is a very lucrative niche in that it represents today more than 825 millions of euros for the 0-2 year's bracket2. Moreover the budget allocated by parents to clothing for a baby between 0 and 2 years was around 600 euros in 2002 and is rising steadily every year since then.
