Break Through The "Glass Ceiling" -- CHIC And The Whole Industry

In 1993, the founding of China International Clothing and Accessories Fair (CHIC) was a great event of epoch-making significance in the development of China's textile and garment industry.

As the most important fashion trade platform in the whole industry, the establishment of CHIC has become the beginning of announces China's apparel industry to enter the world and take part in international competition. It has created an opportunity for Chinese clothing brands to quickly become an overseas market and become a new symbol of China's national image. At the same time, CHIC's founding is also a prelude to the development of brand, marketization and standardization of Chinese garment enterprises.

In the past 16 years, CHIC has been growing and has witnessed the development of Chinese garment enterprises and industries.

From nearly 400 exhibitors in 1993 to more than 1000 exhibitors in 2008, the exhibition area also increased from 11 thousand square meters to 110 thousand square meters. CHIC has completed the development of scale benefit mode, and has gradually become the platform of resources integration of Chinese and foreign garment industry, and it is also a booster power for the development of Chinese clothing brand.

With the advancement of the times, the development of industries and the enhancement of international exchanges, CHIC's own characteristics have gradually shifted to pragmatism.

Looking back in 1993, the first CHIC was so beautiful that Pierre Cardin came to the show with his own works. The works of Valentino and Ferre came to China for the first time, and held a large-scale fashion show in the hall of prayer for mercy in Tiantan. To some extent, the significance of the fashion culture led by CHIC was obviously far greater than the commercial platform itself.

In contrast, after entering the new millennium, especially with the abolition of textile quotas, China's clothing export ranks first in the world. After nearly 10 years of development, Chinese clothing brand enterprises are becoming more mature. At that time, CHIC has quietly pformed successfully, showing a practical attitude to concern about the needs of enterprises, and the way of weaving and business philosophy are increasingly approaching the international standard form.

However, as the traditional labor intensive industry of China's textile and garment industry, with the increase of processing costs of labor and raw materials, low brand value and fierce market competition, many contradictions, such as interest dilution, are almost sharpened. The industry has ushered in a major gateway to further development. Industrial upgrading and pformation are no longer blueprint outlined in the plan, but have become inevitable and imminent inevitable actions.

In fact, before the outbreak of the financial crisis in the second half of 2008, China's clothing import and export business has begun to be constrained by international trade barriers, which is constrained by the pfer of capital to cheaper developing countries, and the decline in consumer confidence caused by the subprime crisis has accelerated the intensification of contradictions from external conditions.

According to the statistics of the Ministry of industry and information in November 2008, a considerable number of small and medium-sized enterprises have been stopped in the Pearl River Delta and the Yangtze River Delta region in the first ten months of 2008, among which clothing processing enterprises are more obvious in this respect because of the impact of the decline in exports.

Innovation and pformation has become an urgent problem for the whole garment industry to seek for development.

CHIC will inevitably become the entry point and starting point for adapting and driving the whole industry to change.

For a long time, the so-called "glass ceiling" phenomenon exists in the development of China's clothing industry.

Regardless of the importance and necessity of industrial upgrading and pformation, experts from industry associations, academic experts, media personages and entrepreneurs have also understood that increasing the added value of products will drive enterprises and industries into a new and broader development stage.

However, due to the fact that the actual production mode can still create considerable profits, and the pformation may bring labor pains, it is difficult for the ship to turn around and it is difficult to make up its mind to adjust its management strategy, management structure and product category.

At the same time, because of insufficient capital accumulation, enterprises are more afraid to take risks to pform.

Although we have seen the beautiful scenery on the "glass ceiling", we have never realized the key leap to change our destiny.

Under the ceiling, Chinese clothing enterprises have been gradually baptized in the first stage of development from product (batch production) to reputation (construction of brand reputation) after more than 20 years of brand strategy baptism. However, in the second stage, products from reputation to higher level, with more creativity, creativity and higher value-added products, have never been able to achieve a qualitative breakthrough.

Similar to the development of Chinese garment enterprises, CHIC is also beginning to face the proposition that "simple trade can no longer meet the needs of today's clothing brand enterprises and market development".

Staying under the ceiling will inevitably lead to the lagging behind in the process of reflecting the latest development trend of international clothing. On this platform which requires more value and creativity, we are lagging behind in the international market, and at the same time, there are also two deficiencies in fashion trend and innovation and technology.

CHIC, as the most influential and influential clothing professional exhibition in Asia, has greater practical significance in pformation and innovation, because its change will directly affect and drive the development and pformation of the entire garment industry.

Since the third quarter of 2008, the international economic and financial situation has deteriorated rapidly, the financial crisis has intensified and accelerated to spread to the real economy. Our economy has also been seriously affected.

To maintain growth and promote development, facing the crisis, CHIC2009's breakthrough is of great significance to the whole industry.

It can also be considered that this is a major test of China's clothing industry and CHIC, and it can be seen as a rare opportunity.

The crisis has brought severe pressure to the garment industry chain to a certain extent. Opportunities and challenges have objectively created the soil of change, and will help entrepreneurs to break through the "glass ceiling" on the understanding.

The State Council recently issued ten measures to stimulate domestic demand, decided to increase support for small and medium-sized enterprises from financial credit, and promoted the pformation of value-added tax to help enterprises.

On the other hand, China's clothing industry must also strengthen its own construction, enhance its ability to resist risks, really adjust the strategy of relying solely on exports, and expand the domestic market as the main task at this stage, and cultivate the domestic market and enterprises that can withstand the test.

Among them, brand strategy is still the most important and effective way to upgrade garment industry.

The enterprise insists on building a brand with independent intellectual property rights, on the one hand, it can harvest huge profits brought by high value-added products, so as to obtain the funds needed for production and development, improve cash flow status, coagulate the centripetal force of employees, on the other hand, it can occupy a more advantageous position in international competition, drive the Chinese clothing brand to form a group effect on the international stage, enhance the gold content of "made in China", and create a new breakthrough point for China's clothing products to open up international markets such as Europe and the United States.

In such a big environment, in the process of upgrading China's garment industry as a whole, CHIC as the most representative platform for trade, exhibition and communication, its pformation will surely play an important role in promoting the whole industry.

In fact, CHIC has made useful explorations and attempts in practice, such as tilting to the brand enterprises in the exhibition strategy, focusing on the fashion sense and multi-functional characteristics of the products, and further shaping the most forward-looking information intelligence, business opportunities, exchange and sharing fashion brand images in the fashion industry, and guiding and promoting the further innovation and creativity of the exhibition brand enterprises, and then promoting the deep development and all-round integration of the Chinese and foreign garment industry and fashion related industries.

CHIC2009 will adhere to the "promoting brand value enhancement" as the core, with the aim of "professional services, brand services and comprehensive services", strengthen brand communication efforts, strengthen professional business services, enrich related cooperation among various elements, introduce cross boundary integration concept, and integrate supporting resources.

From the culture, independent innovation, science and technology, marketing, brand strategy and other aspects to create brand display effect, so that its market development function to a higher level, to show a higher level of brand capability.

It can be predicted that in 2009, CHIC, the most fashionable experience, the most commercial value, the most influential industry and the social influence of the clothing brand exhibition and business platform, will surely form a new demonstration effect and drive the whole industry to make progress together. The value matrix created by it can not be measured. Enlarging its platform value will become a new mission of CHIC2009, and will also make it a lighthouse to illuminate the future development direction of China's garment industry in 2009.