Global market review of workwear- forecasts to 2012 - 2006 edition

For a quarter of the developed world's population, what we wear to work is what our employers have given us - and the workwear sector being valued worldwide at US$4.241bn in 2005 supports this surprising statistic. The fact that the clothes are not bought by the wearer, and the wearer only has some input into the choice of his or her work wardrobe,  makes corporatewear unique to any other apparel category.

The reasons that workers are given clothes for work are generally necessity, personal protection (legal or moral obligations) and corporate image. This second edition report from just-style concentrates upon the relationship between workwear and corporatewear clothing, which is driven by the concept of the employer's image that is presented to the world through the employee's clothes.

In this edition the main themes are:

• the blurring of the dividing line between these categories of clothing
• the growing importance of image as well as function in all the subsets
• the share of workwear within corporatewear in total in both the developed and the developing world.