Fashion Highland Promotes "Prosperity" With "Innovation" -- Investigation On Shenzhen Garment Industry'S Continuous Improvement Of Innovation

One year's plan lies in spring, and it is time for new clothes. As one of the most developed cities in China's clothing industry, Shenzhen has become a highland of original brands from the early "three processing and one compensation" and OEM production. It actively gives play to the advantages of scientific and technological innovation to promote "prosperity" with "innovation", strives to promote the leap from "Made in China" to "Designed in China" and "Global Fashion", and continues to create more value for the market.

At present, the clothing market has entered the "season change" mode, and businesses are working hard to meet the new season. The reporter visited Shenzhen fashion street and clothing market to see that the models displayed in clothing stores have changed into new seasonal products, and consumers and purchasers carry shopping bags of large and small sizes while walking and shopping for clothes.

Shenzhen, as one of the most developed cities in China's clothing industry, has many original clothing brands, complete industrial chain and significant scale effect. The 2025 Shenzhen (Longhua) · Milan Twin Cities Fashion Week held in Italy recently comprehensively demonstrated the innovation achievements of fashion industry in Shenzhen and Milan. Where does the vitality of Shenzhen garment industry come from, and how does it promote "prosperity" with "innovation"?

　　 Self created brand redesign

Shenzhen garment industry started at the beginning of the establishment of the special zone, and rose up in foreign processing and export. "In the early days, the Internet was underdeveloped, online shopping platforms did not rise, and clothing wholesale and co processing businesses were active." Li Fang, president of Shenzhen Lixiu Fashion Industry Association, said that Shenzhen was once an important purchasing place for many mainland clothing wholesalers. In recent years, with the rise of e-commerce model, and consumers pay more attention to quality consumption, wholesalers have to find new development paths.

How to break the subject? "People began to focus on quality, originality, and products." Li Fang said that in order to adapt to market changes, many traditional enterprises actively embarked on the road of independent brand building to improve product added value and market competitiveness. As a result, Masefield, Yinger, Golith and other leading enterprises, as well as Yizhihui, Tianyi, Opellano and a large number of well-known original designer brands at home and abroad came into being. The establishment of these brands and the first successful transformation of enterprises have greatly encouraged the clothing industry in Shenzhen, and led to the establishment of a large number of innovative design brands such as Kasimiya, Shaiyachang, Moushang, etc. At present, the output value of Shenzhen's own brand products has risen from less than 5% in the early 1990s to more than 90%.

Zhao Huizhou is a representative figure in the fashion industry and design field in Shenzhen. She has successively founded the original women's clothing brands of "EACHWAY" and "HUI", and is committed to demonstrating the charm of Chinese traditional culture and the unique charm of oriental women with design. Zhao Huizhou recalled: "When I first came to Shenzhen in the late 1990s, it was still 'deserted'. At that time, there was no concept of independent designer in China. When I heard that I wanted to be my own brand, everyone thought it was impossible. Now, I have been working in the clothing industry with original brands for more than 20 years. This is the process of running all the time, and also the process of brand primitive accumulation. My love for clothes has promoted me to promote my favorite clothes to the world. ”In September 2024, Zhao Huizhou led Gaoding and high-end ready to wear brand "HUIHui" to the 14th Milan Fashion Week in Italy. Among them, the brand Spring Summer 2025 series "Zhuang Tour" is inspired by the ancient poem "Zhuang Tour" of Tang Dynasty poet Du Fu, and borrows the traditional Chinese batik, printing and tie dyeing intangible cultural heritage skills to vividly show the oriental aesthetic charm and Chinese women's power, which has won praise from the international fashion industry. Zhao Huizhou said, "In the future, we will continue to adhere to the concept of innovation and inheritance, integrate more traditional crafts and cultural elements into fashion design, explore the way of integration of fashion and culture, and bring more unique and attractive fashion works to global consumers."

Shenzhen original design brand "Shaikeback" also focuses on Chinese design. This brand takes the unique fabric weaving, dyeing and finishing skills in Lingnan region, and the national intangible cultural heritage Xiangyun yarn as the creation starting point, and promotes the activation of Xiangyun yarn through the unique oriental aesthetic design style and natural and sustainable fashion concept. "In fact, doing Chinese fashion design is also 'doing culture'." Feng Junzhu, the head of the brand "Shaiyangchang", said that Xiangyun gauze is mainly dark colors with a sense of age. Many people think it is dull and old-fashioned, and its cultural heritage was once ignored. "Grain drying field" has improved the modernity and fashion of Xiangyun yarn by innovating the shape, pattern and color. In the design, the brand also incorporates traditional auspicious patterns such as Baoxiang flower and nine color deer, which makes Xiangyun gauze popular with more and more consumers. With the rise of new Chinese clothing, the Chinese fabric market continues to be hot. Industry insiders predict that in 2025, the retail scale of China's fragrant cloud gauze market will exceed 110 billion yuan, and the fragrant cloud gauze is rapidly accepted by the market and shows great market potential.

　　 Up and down linkage to strengthen industry

When entering the Lixiu Clothing Culture Street in Nanshan District, Shenzhen, wholesalers from all over the country dragged suitcases and shuttled back and forth between buildings. This block gathers more than 3000 business entities and more than 2000 original fashion designers. The business type covers all aspects of the clothing industry chain, such as fabric supply, clothing design, production and processing, and sales. The industry radiates nearly one million employees. It is the most complete industry chain, the most active, and the most influential modern fashion industry cluster in Guangdong Hong Kong Macao Greater Bay Area and even in China.

Fabric is the key link of clothing design and development, which not only affects the appearance and texture of clothing, but also directly affects the comfort and durability of the wearer. The development and utilization of new fabrics has effectively improved the clothing design and innovation of the Lixiu Clothing Cultural District. The Shangshangcheng International Flour Accessories Trading Center, located in the street block, has gathered more than 100 flour accessories enterprises, involving various fabrics such as light textile, worsted and woolen fabrics, as well as various accessories such as zippers, buttons and packaging.

"Among the numerous fabrics in the trading center, silk products are the most abundant." He Renjian, Deputy Secretary General of the Standardization Technical Committee of Shenzhen Garment Supply Chain Association, said that although Shenzhen does not produce silk, Shenzhen and its surrounding cities are clustered with silk germ end, dyeing end, printing end and other supporting industries. The real silk category of Lixiu Clothing Culture Street has a national market share of more than 50%. It is an important distribution center for high-end real silk and special silk, and also a "must win" for the silk industry.

Stepping into the "Kaixiya" store on the second floor of the trading center, Fu Qiangzheng, the head of the South China sales center of Zhejiang Kaixiya Zhifang Technology Co., Ltd., poured water on a silk waterproof down jacket: the water fell to the ground, but the clothes were not soaked. This is the "Dance of Water" functional silk fabric launched by "Kaixiya" in 2024, which uses new black technology to form submicroscopic rough bulges on the silk surface, and has a super hydrophobic protective film like the lotus leaf surface. All kinds of common liquids in life are difficult to immerse into the interior of the fabric, so as to achieve waterproof, oil proof and antifouling effects. "The 'Water Dance' mainly solves the three pain points of traditional silk fabrics, namely, they are easy to get dirty, difficult to take care of, and wearing is restricted by the season." Fu Qiang said that through scientific and technological innovation, the fabric has been specially woven. The 'Water Dance' is not only waterproof, oil proof, and antifouling, but also has stronger toughness and longer service life. Now it has been successfully applied to outdoor clothing and down jackets.

Fu Qiang said that "Kaixiya" has also launched sunscreen lightweight silk, machine washable silk, crisp silk and other fabrics. Among them, the sunscreen UPF value of lightweight silk fabric reaches 329, which is 8 times of the national standard. They also insisted on cultural empowerment. In 2024, they launched the "China ing" series of silk fabrics, forming the "five colors of China" color system, and established a "one-stop" color model from multiple dimensions such as main colors, auxiliary colors, patterns, and scenes, providing a more diversified color selection and matching scheme for downstream clothing design and development.

Innovative fabric development effectively supports the original quality of clothing. The original clothing brand "Moushang Modsea", which has grown up in Lixiu Clothing Cultural District since 2010, is one of the downstream customers of "Kaixiya". In its 2024 autumn "Yurun Youguang" series clothing design, the design team adopted the "butterfly satin" blue silk made by "Kaixiya" with digital artificial intelligence weaving technology. The colorful, soft fabric makes the clothing more beautiful and shiny, which is widely welcomed by buyers.

"With high-quality silk as the main fabric, the brand has launched a series of elegant, simple and modern high-end fashion." "Moushang Modsea" Li Luyi, the founder and design director, said, "Original design is a hard way to go because of its large investment and long cycle in the early stage of development, but maintaining the independence and originality of design, taking the route of improving quality and value, also allows us to win the brand loyalty of downstream buyers and target consumers. The improvement of product strength drives the improvement of brand market competitiveness and attractiveness."

"In order to promote the innovation ability of fashion design, the district is still making continuous efforts." Li Fang said that over the years, Shenzhen Fashion District has insisted on "going out and bringing in", leading original brands to participate in domestic and foreign exhibitions and fashion week activities, while starting from cultural creativity, design research and development, education and training, cross-border and cross city exchanges and other aspects, Cultivate international original clothing brands with high added value. Today, the street women's fashion index is three to seven days ahead of the country. Nearly 8% of the country's fashion clothing is exported here, and the speed of launching new products is zero time difference with the international market. Next, the district will make efforts to build a new market element field of "people, goods and market", and promote the clothing industry to "strengthen the chain, supplement the chain and extend the chain".

Xiao Youjie, general manager of Shenzhen Huahaida (International) Garment Trading Center, said that Shenzhen is taking professional markets, fashion blocks, etc. as its core industrial clusters, promoting the continuous enhancement of original design ability, constantly making the brand clothing influence and popularity known, helping the clothing industry to continuously improve its innovation and competitiveness, and constantly meeting the fashion consumption needs of the people.

　　 Diversified business types promote consumption

Nowadays, the clothing consumption scene is more and more abundant. In this context, how to continuously enhance the attractiveness of the professional clothing market is a major issue that relevant practitioners must face.

The reporter visited several clothing markets in Shenzhen and found that wholesalers are paying more and more attention to retail experience, while retailers are reducing costs through large-scale procurement. At the same time, online and offline linkage, on-site and off-site collaboration continue to improve the efficiency of commodity circulation, providing consumers with more flexible and diverse shopping options, which has also become a key to the continued "freshness" of the professional clothing market.

Huahaida (International) Garment Trading Center, located in Luohu District, Shenzhen, has gathered more than 500 clothing, luggage, shoes and hats brands through the introduction of fast fashion, designer brands and other forms of business, forming a virtuous circle of wholesale and retail integration and mutual supplement.

Arriving at the "Anna" women's clothing store on the 8th floor of the clothing trading center, Gao Liwei, the store manager, was busy checking the goods and placing an order with the manufacturer. These are the wholesale goods that the retailer places an order for in store selection, and will be delivered directly from the manufacturer in the future. There is a discount for wholesale goods from the store, which is very attractive to customers. In addition to wholesale business, retail is also the "big head" of sales of "Elefana". Gao Liwei said that at present, the brand has 4 stores in Huahaida, which are respectively targeted at customers of different ages from 20 to 70.

Shenzhen Wanjinlong Cultural Development Co., Ltd. chose the business model of online and offline coordinated development. Li Chunju, the general manager of the company, said that offline, since 2017, she has opened two physical stores under the brand of "Meiji Shidai", mainly engaged in women's casual clothes; On line, seven private communities have been established, radiating more than 7000 users and providing a large number of self operated products with "full range, high quality and high cost performance".

"Relying on digital means, we can more accurately capture market demand, optimize inventory management, and improve customer experience. Offline stores have become an important entrance and experience place for online traffic, and customers can try on or pick up goods at the store after placing orders online." Li Chunju said that after the online platform sets up a full category supply chain, multiple categories are gathered to meet the needs of different age groups The diversified consumption needs of different occupational groups have changed from a business of only one woman to a business of one family.

At present, live delivery is popular, but the reporter's visit found that live delivery is not "hot" here. "Online live broadcast also has a negative effect. After trying, we found that the online mode has disadvantages for professional markets and clothing enterprises that focus on original design and brand development." Xiao Youjie said that Shenzhen's clothing industry is taking the road of brand development, and the live broadcast with goods mode that wins by volume is not friendly to original design brands with large investment and long development cycle. For professional markets, the "low price and high quantity" model will lead to the inflow of low-quality goods, which will damage the reputation of the industry and is not conducive to sustainable development.

"As consumers pay more attention to cost performance and consumption experience, the professional market with clustered and integrated development is increasingly popular." Xiao Youjie said that the professional market pays attention to cooperation with external supply chains, design institutions, industry associations, etc., and accurately matches public consumption needs through brand alliances, theme exhibitions, discount season marketing and other activities on the scene. The multiple advantages have also brought many "Hong Kong tourists" to Huahaida, and Luohu has become the first stop for many Hong Kong people to come to the mainland for consumption. In this regard, Huahaida has set up special shuttle vehicles to facilitate the return of "Hong Kong passengers" after they leave the customs; We also regularly invite Hong Kong online celebrities to experience, and drive more Hong Kong people to come to spend.

(Source: Economic Daily reporter Yang Yangteng)