Although the fashion industry developed first in Europe and America, as of 2014 it is an international and highly globalized industry, with clothing often designed in one country, manufactured in another, and sold world-wide. For example, an American fashion company might source fabric in China and have the clothes manufactured in Vietnam, finished in Italy, and shipped to a warehouse in the United States for distribution to retail outlets internationally. The fashion industry has long been one of the largest employers in the United States,[citation needed] and it remains so in the 21st century. However, U.S. employment declined considerably as production increasingly moved overseas, especially to China. Because data on the fashion industry typically are reported for national economies and expressed in terms of the industry's many separate sectors, aggregate figures for world production of textiles and clothing are difficult to obtain. However, by any measure, the clothing industry accounts for a significant share of world economic output.
The fashion industry consists of four levels:
the production of raw materials, principally fibers and textiles but also leather and fur the production of fashion goods by designers, manufacturers, contractors, and others retail sales various forms of advertising and promotion
These levels consist of many separate but interdependent sectors,[which?] each