Fashion pulse: New Zealand - March 2026

Consumer prices (March 2026 quarter)

Clothing and footwear prices in New Zealand rose 1.3 percent in the year to March 2026, according to Statistics New Zealand, moderating from +1.7 percent in the Q4 2025 quarter and running 1.8 percentage points below the +3.1 percent headline CPI reading. Unlike most OECD markets, Stats NZ publishes CPI on a quarterly basis rather than monthly, so the next update will cover the June 2026 quarter on 21 July 2026. Clothing’s quarterly contribution to the all-groups CPI was near-zero (−0.008 percentage points), indicating clothing prices held roughly steady quarter-on-quarter while other categories — notably housing (+0.99 pp contribution) and food (+0.75 pp) — drove the annual rise.