Methodology

To identify the least fashionable cities in America, 24/7 Wall St. created an index of five measures: the number of fashion-related establishments in each city; the number of luxury brand outlets; fashion company headquarters; trade shows; and total employment of fashion designers. We only considered cities with median household incomes greater than the national median annual household income (five-year average) of $55,322. In addition, cities on this list could not be located within any of the metropolitan areas that include towns ranked among the 50 most fashionable cities.

The number of fashion-related establishments was obtained from Yelp, and the category includes anything from sportswear and sleepwear stores to vintage clothing and shoe stores.

The number of fashion companies headquartered in each city came from Chain Store Guide’s “Top 100 Apparel Specialty Stores Ranked by Industry Sales.”

The list of 17 top luxury fashion brands, ranked as the world’s most influential brands of 2017, is from CEOWORLD, a business magazine catered to top leaders in business such as CEOs, CFOS, and CIOs. We counted the number of such luxury fashion stores in each city. The number of trade shows coming through each city in 2018 came from Startup Fashion, an online community that helps independent fashion brands create successful businesses. The number of fashion designers employed at each MSA’s principal city came from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Employment Statistics program and is as of May 2017, the most recent data available.