You might think that missiles flying over the waters of the Strait of Hormuz were a world away from your closet full of fleece jackets, leggings and trainers.
In fact, that couldn’t be further from the truth. Most of your wardrobe is made of oil, in the form of polyester, nylon, spandex and other synthetic fibers. Though the ripples from a petroleum shock propagate more quickly to the prices of gasoline, diesel and air tickets, they have been quietly spreading into the apparel trade, too. The best-value clothes — think that $1 pair of tights from Shein, or $15 coat from Temu — may suffer the biggest impacts.
As with the toilet-paper frenzy at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, and drivers pre-emptively filling their tanks on reports of the US-Israel attacks on the Middle East, the first sign of a supply shock is often panic buying.
