The 2023 World Fashion Conference, hosted by the China National Textile and Apparel Council and the Dongguan Municipal People's Government, was recently held in Dongguan, Guangdong. Professionals from 20 countries and regions, including Italy, France, and the United Kingdom, gathered in Humen to discuss the global garment industry.

"The integration of Chinese clothing into the world development has brought opportunities to the world." Sun Ruizhe, President of China National Textile and Apparel Council, pointed out at the meeting that international cooperation and openness and sharing are more needed than ever to solve the problem of common development. He called for the implementation of the Global Development Initiative and the finding of strength in "breaking and standing"; It is necessary to implement the Global Security Initiative and find a balance between "competition and cooperation"; It is necessary to practice the Global Civilization Initiative and find resonance in "Differences and Similarities".

Domestic clothing exceeds half of the world's

In Humen Town, Dongguan, Guangdong, there are nearly 3000,20 clothing and apparel production enterprises, employing more than 1000,<> people and more than <>,<> supporting service organizations.

Liu Tianqi, general manager of Dongguan Munira Garment Co., Ltd., told reporters that the company mainly makes national costumes, and in recent years, it has seized the opportunity of cross-border e-commerce to open up the market in Southeast Asia. The next step will be to actively embrace digitalization, develop overseas markets, and explore more new opportunities.

"The complete supporting of the industrial chain and supply chain is the basis for the formation of industrial advantages of Humen clothing." Wu Qingqiu, deputy secretary of the Party Committee and mayor of Humen Town, said that Humen has now become a well-known textile and garment industry cluster in China and is well-known at home and abroad. In 2019, Humen and the China National Textile and Apparel Council officially joined hands to jointly build a "world-class garment industry cluster pilot zone".

During the conference, the China National Textile and Apparel Council announced that the regional brand value of "Humen Clothing" was 1782.81 billion yuan. Yang Zhaohua, vice president of China National Textile and Apparel Council, issued a brand value certificate to Humen Town.

The development of Humen is a microcosm of the development of China's garment industry. Nowadays, Chinese clothing has been deeply integrated into the development of the world. Sun Ruizhe said that China's annual output of more than 700 billion pieces of clothing, accounting for more than half of the world. The domestic market size is 4.5 trillion yuan, accounting for 40% of global sales; In 2022, the export value of apparel was 1820 billion US dollars, accounting for 31.7% of the global market share. Relying on the advantages of supporting and innovation capabilities, scale and system, Made in China has become the guarantee of global clothing quality and quantity.

Since the beginning of this year, in the face of complex problems such as sluggish demand, China's clothing has still demonstrated its development resilience and gradually recovered. From the retail side, the recovery trend of clothing consumption is more certain. From January to October, the retail sales of clothing, shoes, hats and knitted textiles of units above designated size reached 1,10.11126 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 0.10%; online retail sales of clothing products increased by 2.7% year-on-year; The total export value of clothing reached 6.1331 billion US dollars.

Technology, fashion, and green lead innovation

As a Chinese brand that has appeared on the official agenda of Milan Fashion Week for five consecutive times, Jinba menswear tells the story of oriental aesthetics to the world.

At the 2023 World Fashion Congress Textile and Apparel Brand Development Conference, Hong Boming, CEO and Creative Director of Jinba Men's Wear (Shanghai) Co., Ltd., said that Jinba Men's Wear continues to deepen Chinese traditional culture, takes oriental aesthetics as the endogenous driving force of high-end new domestic products, and continuously injects the spiritual connotation and aesthetic value of Chinese traditional culture into Chinese jackets by extracting iconic oriental aesthetic image symbols for contemporary design, intangible cultural heritage cooperation, artist cooperation and other ways.

In the process of China's rapid development, young people are increasingly expressing their love for traditional Chinese culture, and local originality in the clothing industry has gradually become a trend. From 2015 to 2022, the size of the Hanfu market increased from 1 million yuan to 9.125 billion yuan. Horse face skirts, Forbidden City co-branded, Dunhuang co-branded products and other products have become popular models.

Zheng Yongnian, dean of the Qianhai Institute of International Affairs of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (Shenzhen) and chairman of the Guangzhou Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Research Institute, suggested that culture is the soft power of clothing. As an important force in promoting the modernization process, Chinese brands should upgrade from brand awareness to cultural awareness, dig deep into cultural connotation, and achieve differentiated development with the help of technological means.

In Yang Zhaohua's view, China's textile and garment brands need to continue to innovate and break through, seek innovation in the changing situation, seek upgrading in the change, and meet today's new formats and new models with product segmentation, operation digitalization, brand culture construction and sustainable development.

In the context of a new round of industrial transformation and consumption upgrading, innovation has become a high-frequency word in clothing development planning. Sun Ruizhe said that the current global garment industry is facing changes in the industrial pattern, development paradigm, market space, and value standards. In the face of a complex environment, China's garment industry has demonstrated resilience and actively promoted the practice of new industrialization from the perspectives of product innovation, manufacturing innovation and market innovation.

Product innovation. On the one hand, the wide application of cutting-edge materials and advanced technology has continuously improved the sense of technology, experience, value and functionality of clothing products. Promote the development of high-end, intelligent and green products with the development of material technologies such as graphene, conductive fibers, optical fibers, biodegradable materials, and a new generation of 3D printing materials. On the other hand, driven by the scene, focusing on new lifestyles such as outdoor sports, health preservation, and pet economy, we have strengthened the innovation of clothing products and categories, such as "HOTSUIT", which has become the world's first in the field of sweatwear in three years.

Manufacturing innovation. Including flexible manufacturing with efficiency as the core, such as Jack's "fast anti-king" can adapt to sewing extremely thick, extremely thin, extremely elastic and other fabrics at the same time; Platform manufacturing characterized by intensification, reconstructing the garment manufacturing ecology, and emerging new models such as networked collaboration and service-oriented extension, such as Hanbo "Hubble Smart Cloud", Huimei Cloud Enterprise Middle Platform System and other platforms to achieve ubiquitous connection and optimal configuration; With a focus on low-carbon green manufacturing, China's recycled chemical fiber output will exceed 2022 million tons in 500.

Market innovation. It is reflected in the increasing maturity of channel innovation. With service and experience as the core, offline channels are accelerating quality upgrades and sinking layouts, while online channels are extending from traditional e-commerce to live broadcast e-commerce, content e-commerce, and cross-border e-commerce. In addition, brand innovation has developed rapidly, with content and internationalization being more prominent, and the rapid development of trendy brands, intangible cultural heritage and national costumes; Focusing on the concept of environmental protection and social responsibility, sustainable fashion has become an important gene of the brand.

Global cooperation to achieve integrated development

At the conference site, the reporter confirmed the identity of the other party through a piece of clothing - William Shen, founder and creative director of the Chinese avant-garde art brand RAXXY, because the "serial fashion" is too recognizable.

William Shen said that he was inspired by the "intangible cultural heritage" bamboo weaving craft in Jiangnan. The "sequential fashion" constructed by a single geometric element, concise colors, three-dimensional structure, and complex AI generation algorithms is not only a digital innovation, but also rich in the spiritual core of Chinese cultural craftsmanship, and has been very popular overseas since its launch.

On the day of "Double 11", William Shen posted a picture of Ruixi on the global fashion shopping platform in the circle of friends, with the text "The average price of a single product exceeds 3500,<> US dollars, and it is the world's most expensive down jacket brand". At the same time, he also admitted that at present, the brand is mainly sold overseas, and the acceptance of the domestic market is not high.

From international brands to today's Chinese clothing brands going out, Chinese clothing is deeply integrated into the world. As a symbol industry of industrial transfer and a leading industry of industrialization, China's garment industry is also an important area to achieve South-South cooperation and North-South cooperation and promote the process of modernization.

Chen Dapeng, vice president of the China Textile Federation and president of the China Garment Association, said that the high degree of global relevance of the garment industry and the era of great changes in the industry require the garment industry of various countries to strengthen communication and jointly explore how to achieve win-win cooperation and achieve integrated development in the new development period. The World Apparel Cooperation and Development Roundtable held during the conference aims to exchange the development of the fashion industry in various countries, discuss and look forward to the future development trend on the common problems faced by the industry, and form a vision for future cooperation and development.

Through full exchanges, the guests from various countries showed a strong desire for collaboration and cooperation, and hoped that this meeting could effectively promote the formation of a win-win international cooperation mechanism. Sun Ruizhe appealed, "Let us adhere to the priority of development, share safety and welfare, and learn from each other, demonstrate the responsibility of fashion in building a community with a shared future for mankind, and contribute to the power of fashion in the process of world modernization."

Liu Jin