Menswear field leaving the ladies behind

Consultancy Bain & Co said the value of the high-end menswear market is growing at 14% a year compared to 8% annually for womenswear, Reuters reported.

‘Menswear... remains very underdeveloped compared to the woman's market, so there is a lot of catching up to do,’ Jean-Marc Bellaiche, consultant at Boston Consulting Group, told the news agency.

Most of the growth is coming from China, with men comprising 75% of a luxury market that’s growing by 20-25% per year. Not that the menswear boom is limited to China—Hermès said that sales from its dedicated men’s shop in New York outpaced its 30% sales growth in the US.

The encouraging pace of sales has inspired luxury groups to invest more deeply into their men’s holdings. PPR, which owns Gucci and Bottega Veneta, bought Brioni in November, tapping a designer from Ermenegildo Zegna to design the Italian tailoring brand’s first ready-to-wear line. LVMH is devoting more resources to its Berluti brand to keep up.

A quick consensus of ELLEuk.com editors found that most of the men in our lives have yet to board the luxury fashion boat. At least, and perhaps more accurately, not in relation to our consumption—the look of horror on one partner’s face when confronted with the haul from a triumphant visit to the Christian Louboutin sample sale conveyed volumes in a single grimace.

So who are these fashionable men? And where can we find them, to give the late adopters lessons in quality fashion spending, if nothing else?

See fashion's best dressed men here...