The Garment District, also known as the Fashion District, is a roughly 2.5-square-kilometer neighborhood in Manhattan that contains the warehouses, production facilities, suppliers, showrooms and wholesale outlets of New York's major, and non-major, fashion designers. It is located between Fifth and Ninth Avenues and 34th and 42nd Streets. Throughout the 20th century the district has been the center of fashion manufacturing in America and it occupies a special place in the international fashion industry since in no other country or city can such a dense concentration of businesses dedicated to fashion be found in one urban zone. Today, even though American labels often find it difficult to compete internationally, the Garment District nevertheless has a $14-billion annual turnover, which makes it an important asset for New York.
New York City has always been the leader of the country's garment industry. In the beginning of the 19th century it was the first to produce ready-made clothes on a large scale. Paradoxically, New York manufacturers often used southern cotton collected by slaves to make "assembly line" clothes for those same slaves. During the American Civil War manufacturers supplied uniforms for the Union Army and by the end of the 19th century most Americans were buying ready-made attire instead of having it custom-made. At the turn of the century European immigrants gave the industry a big boost, not only by creating a powerful, non-stop workforce but also by introducing techniques and styles that they had brought from their mother countries. In 1900 the value of New York's garment business was three times more than the city's second most important industry, sugar refining. Several years later New York was producing 70% of America's women's clothing and 40% of its men's clothing.
Unfortunately, towards the second half of the 20th century the Garment District witnessed a substantial decline in business, due mainly to cheaper labor and production costs in other areas of the world such as Asia. However, the district is still an integral part of New York City, and a very vibrant part at that. All the major American fashion designers have showrooms and production facilities in the district - Calvin Klein, Donna Karan, Oscar de la Renta, Liz Claiborne and others.