What Is The Obstacle Of Fabric Upgrading?

Some people compare the relationship between fabric and clothing to flour and steamed bread. The finished garment is the re molding of fabric. If you choose the wrong style, you can't show the advantages of the fabric; however, the fabric is the performance medium of fashion design, and if you choose the wrong fabric, you can't realize the design intention. At the same time, the fabric also reflects the brand value and plays a role in improving the brand image. Fabric is so important in clothing, designer How to look at it? What are the factors influencing the upgrading of domestic fabrics?

　　 Trends It's the prelude

The fabric purchasing of garment enterprises is mainly completed by designers and purchasing departments. In general, the designer needs to put forward the relevant requirements of the surface material, and finally the purchasing department will implement it. When selecting fabric, the designer first selects the fabric according to the design theme, then designs some styles according to the selected fabric, combines these styles with the style of the previous design, and finally determines the theme color, and finally makes the secondary selection of the fabric.

At least two problems need to be considered in this process: one is good sales in the past quarter Fabric What is it? Second, what is the trend of fabric? Liao Bo, the design director of Liao Bo fashion design studio, told reporters that one or two new fabrics can be integrated into each new season, but too many popular elements should not be used to avoid disturbing the brand's own style. At the same time, it is also necessary to check whether the yarn color matches the overall color of the theme, not just the final fabric color.

"When you start looking for fabrics, don't involve too much color and printing. On the premise of conforming to the brand style, you should mainly start from the fabric itself, such as yarn count, composition, weaving process, elasticity, thickness, etc. Then do the color adjustment, printing manuscript distribution and other work Zhao Jing, director of the Development Department of a clothing company in Zhejiang Province, put forward his own suggestions.

Professional exhibitions and fabric suppliers are important channels for designers to obtain fabric information. "Every year, designers will be sent to participate in some large-scale international fabric exhibitions to obtain first-hand fashion information and international fabric trends, and determine the approximate fabric style and quantity according to the product planning of the new season and the previous market and sales feedback." "At the same time, fabric suppliers from South Korea, Japan, Europe and other countries and regions that have long-term cooperative relations will also provide us with fabric information in a timely manner," said Zhang Tao, chief designer of women's clothing design department of Shanghai Ailey Clothing Co., Ltd

Since then, the fabric director Zhou Jing has been looking for a breakthrough in fabric demand. However, in recent years, the trend of fashion products development of Jiaojing enterprises lags behind that of Chinese enterprises. "For example, some brand clothing enterprises have been in line with international standards in terms of information and fashion trends. When they plan their products every season, they will look for the corresponding fabrics according to the latest popular colors. However, some fabric enterprises are unable to provide the corresponding fabrics in time and lose the order. There is serious information asymmetry between the two sides. So my obvious feeling is that recently, fabric enterprises pay more and more attention to the application of fashion trends, and hope to have the guidance of fashion trends in the early development, so as to provide better service for customers. "

Zhou Jingjiao, taking a fabric enterprise that is currently serving as an example, introduced to the reporter that the fabric enterprise hopes that in the early stage of fabric development, the partners can provide corresponding popular trend services, including color, printing, seasonal key elements, etc., on this basis, they will carry out targeted research and development. At the same time, they will also develop a fabric trend manual to display the popular and main fabrics in the next season according to the theme direction, so as to provide the inspiration for the next season for clothing enterprise customers. They believe that this can more effectively promote their own fabric, change passive into active. In the long run, this may be what more fabric enterprises want to do and have to do.

Price decides whether to purchase or not

In the process of fabric selection, innovation is one of the factors that designers pay attention to. But Zhang Tao said the contradiction: "for designers, innovation is absolutely the first choice; but in the face of high cost and low sales price, fabric price is the most important, followed by quality stability and innovation." He also said that the current market of surface accessories is not perfect. Both the weaving method and the pattern and color of the fabric are too single and old-fashioned, and the fabric innovation is very insufficient; and such deficiencies also limit the creativity and imagination of designers, and greatly reduce the competitiveness of brand clothing in the market.

Zhao Jing also admitted that due to the high cost, long cycle and strong technicality of fabric development, the use of existing fabrics is a more reasonable choice, and the fabrics from suppliers and exhibitions will be the raw materials for product development in the next quarter.

"At present, most of the fabrics used in our studio are provided by fabric agents, and there is less direct cooperation with fabric enterprises. This way of operation can greatly avoid the singleness of fabric category and facilitate the selection of the best. " Tsai he, designer of stogart fashion design studio, told reporters that at this stage, the more common problem in fabric procurement is the lack of fashion of domestic fabrics, and the process processing is also slightly rough. The color difference, fastness and product quality can not meet the requirements of enterprises, but the price is relatively reasonable, which is convenient for enterprises to operate. The imported fabrics are more in place in fashion and innovation, which is easier to show the style of clothing and has the guarantee of quality, but the high price is often prohibitive. Cost is the key factor to determine the success or failure of garment enterprises in the market competition. However, the high-quality and low-cost fabrics in the market are not available to designers and garment enterprises, which has become a key problem hindering the innovative design of clothing.

For example, they are faced with many problems, such as fabric delivery period, which are far from stable. Among them, the contradiction between clothing brands and fabric suppliers is the most typical.

A few days ago, the reporter interviewed an emerging men's clothing brand enterprise adopting OEM and ODM mode. One of the company's fabric buyers said they had a tough problem: where to get the latest fabric information. Under this mode, the fabric suppliers and ODM suppliers will not necessarily own the fabric brands from the original manufacturers. The person in charge said that most first-line brands will not encounter this problem. They often establish long-term cooperative relations with suppliers. Suppliers can see the future interests, so they are willing to actively provide brand enterprises with the latest fabric products. In the end, the company's solution is to find a cooperative factory through a cooperative fabric manufacturer. In this way, there is a cooperative relationship between the fabric manufacturer and the factory itself, which is conducive to more accurate selection of fabric for clothing brand.

In addition, the initial order quantity and the consistency of sample cloth and bulk goods are also obstacles to the development of growing brands. "Visited a number of fabric manufacturers, not easy to see the fabric, often due to the problem of order, and eventually had to cancel the order." The designer Mi Xiaobing, who just set up his own studio, shook his head helplessly to the reporter, "for a studio like ours, which is small in scale and sells domestically, the fabric required for one or two styles is only 300 or 400 meters. If the starting quantity of the fabric that we like is 600 or 700 meters, or even more than 1000 meters, then we are very passive. Moreover, some styles are very economical in fabric, and it takes hundreds of meters to make hundreds of pieces. For high-end domestic sales, generally speaking, the quantity will be relatively small, and there are a lot of 100-200 pieces of clothing. "

Quality determines the success or failure of products

The innovation and quality of domestic fabrics have gradually been difficult to meet the requirements of domestic designers, and foreign fabrics have been favored by the industry. However, according to the survey, most of the fabrics of middle and high-end brands still come from the domestic market. "The price of domestic fabrics is low, and the prices of foreign fabrics are too high. In today's Chinese clothing market, few brand companies can afford such high fabric costs." Zhang Tao explained the reason. {page_ break}

In the development of fabrics, domestic clothing brands and fabric suppliers are still lack of necessary communication and docking, unable to maximize the integration of existing resources. Fabric enterprises prefer to use the existing technology for mass production. Most of the so-called innovations only change the pattern and printing, but can't fundamentally create from the process, which leads to the high similarity of products. Lack of communication, the newly developed fabrics sometimes can not meet the needs of designers. In addition, under the background of market orientation, the funds and time involved in fabric development are enough to deter many enterprises.

In foreign countries, fabric suppliers are very active and have made great contributions to the upgrading of fabrics. Most of them pay attention to the protection of their own patents and brands. They will also cooperate with clothing brands to develop new fabrics in line with market trends. "The staff can't make a leap without advanced equipment and equipment." This is Zhao Jing's perception.

Mi Xiaobing said that the gap between domestic and foreign fabrics is still determined by the maturity and scale of the whole industry. Most of the domestic fabric manufacturers still use imitation as the main means to produce fabrics by themselves after optimistic about the texture and pattern. In this way, there will be a gap in product quality, but the price is much cheaper than imported fabrics. This also responds to the development status of China's clothing industry, which is a process that must be experienced.

Although there are many disadvantages in the domestic fabric market, the simple extensive and imitation production mode is difficult to meet the needs of the domestic clothing market, but designers are still full of expectations for it.

"In 2015, China will become the first luxury country"; "before 2020, the benefit of China's clothing industry is expected to grow to 300 billion yuan"; "in the future, the consumer market tends to be M-type, and both the high-end and the low-end will expand." the above remarks come from various professional channels and I believe it. Foreign fabrics enter the Chinese market, the international trade war is more intuitive, which will give domestic fabric suppliers more opportunities and challenges. At the same time, the growth of domestic brands and the change of consumption habits will also promote fabric suppliers to transform into high-end markets. " Zhao Jing said excitedly to the reporter.

Zhang Tao holds the same view. He added that labor prices in China are low and many foreign fabrics are processed in China. We have advanced equipment and low-cost labor force, as well as the vast domestic and foreign markets in China. As long as China's local fabric suppliers pay attention to the investment in technology and innovation and increase the training of technical and innovative talents, then the development of Chinese fabrics will not only be limited to China, but also have the strength to seize the international fabric market.