Fashion pulse: Latvia — March 2026

Consumer prices

Latvian headline CPI ran at +3.4 percent year-on-year in March 2026 per CSP, with the fashion basket running closely behind: clothing and footwear inflation at +2.1 percent year-on-year in March. Monthly, prices rose +1.9 percent in March, reflecting broad seasonal pressures across food, transport, and housing categories. Latvia's headline-to-fashion gap of 1.3 percentage points (3.4 vs 2.1) is the narrowest in the Baltic cluster — distinct from Estonia's deep-deflation pattern and Lithuania's mid-range divergence.

Retail sector

Latvian retail volume grew +3.9 percent year-on-year in March 2026 per Eurostat's preliminary calendar-adjusted figure, broadly stable versus February's +4.0 percent (revised from earlier +4.4 percent) and continuing the mid-single-digit growth pattern after December's softer +1.1 percent. Eurostat does not publish sub-sector NACE detail for Latvia; CSP's PxWeb API at data.stat.gov.lv/api/v1/ is the direct path for fashion-specific retail volume.

Monetary policy and currency

The ECB held the deposit facility rate at 2.00 percent through March. The euro weakened 2.25 percent against the US dollar in March (monthly mean 1.1558 vs February's 1.1824), raising landed cost for Latvian fashion importers sourcing from Asia and the US.

What it means for fashion

Latvia fits the moderate-growth, moderate-pricing Baltic pattern in March — neither Estonia's deep-deflation-plus-volume story nor Lithuania's headline-vs-fashion divergence. For Reserved, Cropp, H&M, and Inditex operating in Riga, Latvian demand is steady and category pricing is disciplined — a reasonably clean operating environment. The cross-Baltic divergence is analytically interesting: Estonia's clothing deflation at −5.6 percent, Latvia's +2.1 percent, Lithuania's +0.4 percent — three neighbouring eurozone markets with materially different fashion-pricing dynamics despite similar demand profiles.

Note: this article combines the most recent official data available at the time of writing. Reporting lags differ by indicator and country, so not all figures refer to the same month. Each data point is labelled with its reference period.