The UK’s children’s wear market is just as open to sales pressures as the rest of the high street, just-style heard today (16 September).

“Children’s wear is not immune to recessionary pressures or consumer confidence,” said Ian Mitchell, strategic insight director at Kantar Worldpanel Fashion.

He was speaking at an ASBCI seminar, called The Children’s Wear Challenge – Responding to a Growing Market, this morning.

“Although consumers are buying less items of clothing they are paying more in terms of prices,” Mitchell added.

Leading UK retailers including Next, Asda, Tesco and Marks and Spencer are gaining most children’s wear market share under the current environment, Kantar has found.

Currently, 57% of children’s wear sold in the UK is from supermarket and value retailers, according to the data firm.

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A leading influence on sales in the sector is the ‘mini me’ effect, whereby children want to look like their role models.

Sarah Anderson, product development technologist at Marks and Spencer, said: “They want to look more like mini me but that influence is coming more from celebrities as well as their parents.”

She identified Taylor Swift, Lady Ga Ga, Cheryl Cole, JLS, Jamie Redknapp and David Beckham as leading style icons for the UK children’s wear market.

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