Russians are buying fewer clothes — and paying more for them

Source: Kommersant

Clothing and footwear purchases in Russia fell 10% from January through May 2026 compared with the same period in 2025, the Russian business daily Kommersant reported, citing calculations by the analytics firms Kloto Consulting and TrendVision. In some segments, the decline reached 15%.

The downturn is deepening, the analysts said: purchases fell another 4% in the second quarter of 2026 compared with the first quarter.

In nominal terms, though, the market kept growing, up 5% to 7% in the first quarter. Analysts at Fashion Consulting Group, a market research firm, attributed the increase to rising prices for clothing and footwear. The average receipt rose 7% year over year in the first half, reaching 3,100 rubles, according to the retail analytics service Check Index, while prices in the premium segment climbed 10% to 20% in the first quarter.

Brands are raising prices to offset falling demand and higher production costs, according to Kloto. Producing clothing cost 12% more on average in the first six months of 2026 than a year earlier, driven mainly by higher labor and materials costs — and, in Russia’s case, by sanctions-driven increases in logistics costs.

Rising prices have pushed 34% of consumers toward cheaper clothing lines, but the bigger shift is fewer purchases overall. Shoppers are increasingly waiting for discounts, buying at outlets, or ordering from abroad. Secondhand purchases, meanwhile, rose 9% in the first half of the year.

At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.

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Russians are buying fewer clothes — and paying more for them

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