40°45′13″N 73°59′20″W / 40.7535°N 73.9888°W / 40.7535; -73.9888

The Garment District, also known as the Garment Center, the Fashion District, or the Fashion Center, is a neighborhood located in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. Historically known for its role in the production and manufacturing of clothing, the neighborhood derives its name from its dense concentration of fashion-related uses. The neighborhood, less than 1 square mile (2.6 km²; 640 acres), is generally considered to lie between Fifth Avenue and Ninth Avenue, from 34th to 42nd Streets.

The neighborhood is home to many of New York City's showrooms and to numerous major fashion labels, and caters to all aspects of the fashion process from design and production to wholesale selling. The Garment District has been known since the early 20th century as the center for fashion manufacturing and fashion design in the United States. A study demonstrated that general proximity to New York's Garment District was important to participate in the American fashion ecosystem.

By the late 1930s, the Garment District was broadly surrounded by Sixth Avenue to the east, 25th Street to the south, Ninth Avenue to the west, and 42nd Street to the north. The southern portion, between 25th and 30th Streets, comprised the Fur District, which conducted a very similar function.

The modern-day Garment District's boundaries may be defined most broadly as the area of Manhattan west of Fifth Avenue, below 42nd Street, and as far south as the mid- or upper-20s (including the Fashion Institute of Technology between 26th and 28th Streets from Seventh to Eighth Avenues). The Midtown apparel industry was traditionally concentrated between 28th Street and 38th Street, historically centered around Seventh Avenue (designated "Fashion Avenue" in 1972 for the portion between 26th St. and 42nd St.). With the decline of the industry, the district began to shrink and be concentrated most heavily in the area between Fifth and Ninth Avenues and 35th and 41st Streets, as of 2004. In areas historically part of the Garment District, real estate developers have marketed their projects as being located in Chelsea.

With $9 billion in annual sales in 2011, New York City is the United States' top "global fashion city." The core of the industry is Manhattan's Garment District, where the majority of the city's major fashion labels operate showrooms and execute the fashion process from design and production to wholesaling. No other city has a comparable concentration of fashion businesses and talent in a single district.

The Garment District is home to a number of well-known designers, their production facilities, warehouses, showrooms, and suppliers of fabric and materials. Many in the industry allege that this dense concentration of talent, entrepreneurship and supply stores functions like an ecosystem in which each of the parts help sustain the whole. Major fashion labels such as Carolina Herrera, Oscar de la Renta, Calvin Klein, Donna Karan, Liz Claiborne, Nicole Miller, Ben-Amun, and Andrew Marc have showrooms, production facilities, or support offices located in the Garment District.

While historically known as the center of textile manufacturing, global trends have changed the way the fashion industry in the Garment District functions. Over the last 50 years, New York's garment manufacturing sector has experienced a steady decline within the City overall and within the Fashion District specifically. This has occurred as a result of high Manhattan rents, domestic manufacturers becoming less competitive in the global marketplace, in addition to the outsourcing of clothes manufacturing to lower-cost foreign markets.