Guangdong Fashion Week: The Dream Of Workshop Sewers -- Watch Them Walk On The Catwalk

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Guangdong Fashion Week

Guangdong Fashion Week is held in China

One of the three longest fashion weeks

More than 100 enterprises, thousands of fashion brands, more than 200 designers participated in the launch of tens of thousands of products

Online and offline linkage, bringing hundreds of millions of consumption flow to thousands of participating brands

From raw materials, design and R&D, production and manufacturing to brand marketing, the whole chain of industrial chain is deeply connected

The story begins here:

"When I was very young, I had a special longing for that stage. Although I am now in the workshop, I also try my best to keep fit and learn how to show off, hoping that one day I can walk on this stage." After 20 years of experience in the industry, Haiyan (a pseudonym) has handled hundreds of thousands of clothes, many of which have been sold overseas, but she is reluctant to buy beautiful clothes.

This spring, women textile workers like Haiyan from Guangzhou and Foshan garment factories finally had the opportunity to wear designer tailored fashion and walk on the runway of Guangdong Fashion Week with their heads held high.

On March 28, the 2023 Guangdong Fashion Week Spring ended in Guangzhou International Media Port. As one of the three largest fashion weeks with the longest history in China, there are "old faces" of women textile workers, "old brands" with a history of 100 years such as "benefiting the people of industry", but more original designs, "new elements" of intangible cultural heritage and intellectual empowerment... During the 12 day fashion feast, we saw the textile and clothing industry, a trillion yuan pillar industry in Guangdong, The interaction and integration between "new" and "old".

　　 "Let everyone see the new face of the whole industry"

The little white hat on the head shuttles through the roaring machine, sewing the most popular clothes. Behind Guangdong's trillion level industry, it is the textile workers who maintain the operation of the entire industrial chain through sweat, and also maintain the "Guangdong legend of the textile industry".

"In many years of work, we have met with textile workers of different roles, and found that they also had various stories behind them. As the main textile workers in the industry, they sewed the most popular fashion, but no one was willing to hit them with the spotlight." We saw that the textile women were shining brightly on the catwalk, Zou Yuanjiao, the public relations director of Zhijing Technology brand, was filled with emotion.

"I have been in this business for nearly 20 years. Although I have been making clothes in the workshop, I often shoot videos on the short video platform. I want to show myself and let others see me." Haiyan said the aspirations of many textile women workers.

Sijia, 35 years old, is a female worker in Foshan Textile Factory. On weekdays, Sijia likes to dance and make up. She often posts short videos of her dancing on the Internet and has more than 5000 fans.

"Others think that women workers in textile factories wear uniform clothes every day, earn low wages and work all day in disgrace, but in fact, we have not been like this for a long time," said Sijia.

When I heard that there was a chance to go to the T platform, Sijia was rushing to work in the peak season in the Foshan factory. In the peak season, she can get more than 14000 yuan a month. Every minute and every second is a race against time. But when she heard of this opportunity, she decided to seize it. "How can there be no textile women to participate in the Fashion Week? I also want to go from behind the scenes to in front of the stage."

Today, the textile industry has entered the era of scientific and technological industrialization, and the factory has already entered the modern sequence. When the textile women workers who sew their dreams in the workshop step onto the catwalk, they show this new atmosphere.

"We hope that more people will pay attention to the industry and people in the industry, so we and Guangdong Fashion Week jointly launched this public welfare moment to help these textile women workers realize their dream of catwalk, bloom themselves, and leave beautiful memories of life." Zou Yuanjiao said that the original intention of planning this activity is to let everyone see the new face of the entire industry.

　　 The second century of "benefiting workers and people"

The "old face" of this Guangdong Fashion Week, as well as the century old brand "Li Gongmin".

The "benefit workers and people" T-shirt was once popular in South China, and even Bruce Lee once wore it to show his martial arts.

"The T-shirts produced by Li Gongmin are very flexible, smooth and almost without thread ends. This is because we always insist on not making open shoulders." Wu Weilin, who has grown from a front-line teacher to the deputy general manager of Li Gongmin Company, has witnessed "Li Gongmin"'s adherence to quality in more than 20 years.

Wu Weilin pointed to the clothes on his shoulder and explained: "Because the clothes with open shoulder will have a sewing thread on the shoulder, and this thread will pierce the meat when pressed onto the shoulder, which is uncomfortable to wear. In order to reduce the amount of meat pierced by sewing thread, our masters have thought of many ways."

"In recent years, time-honored brands have become popular among young people, new domestic brands have emerged, and the Guochao economy has shown a trend of vigorous development, which has become an important driving force to promote consumption and expand domestic demand, and has also provided an opportunity for the upgrading of traditional industries." said Guan Yong, deputy general manager of Guangzhou Textile Industry and Trade Enterprise Group Co., Ltd.

"Li Gongmin" is a subordinate brand of the company. Guan Yong uses "bold" to describe its transformation into the second century, "We closely follow the market demand, conduct in-depth research and analysis on the development trend of the industry market. At the same time, we adhere to the ancient method of precision manufacturing, focus on product innovation, and continue to improve product quality. In addition, we combine online and offline to build an omni channel brand marketing system that adapts to the new consumption mode."

These reforms have been reflected in this Fashion Week, forming a large number of new highlights of "benefiting workers and people": the debut of high-quality fashion and leisure brand "LIGOMIN", the color collision of "black, white and gray", the fashion design of "combination of simple and complex", and the clothing experience of "one dress for many" are refreshing.

"This year, the growth of foreign demand continues to slow down, and the industry is generally facing the pressure and challenges of weak foreign demand and declining orders." Guan Yong believes that, in addition to actively developing the mutual transfer of domestic and foreign trade, forming a trade model of buying and selling goods globally, the more important thing is to realize the transformation from "products going abroad" to "brands going abroad".

At present, the spin out company under Guangzhou Textile Industry and Trade Enterprise Group, relying on its independent research and development organization, TIT Brand R&D Center, has promoted the marketization and internationalization of design, elaborately created a series of products such as "GOGO" brand jeans casual clothing, "LIVEN" brand fashionable clothing, "PET" brand children's clothing, which are popular in European and American markets.

"Last year, we set up a sharing R&D base for the TIT brand center in the original base in Haizhu District, Guangzhou." Guan Yong hopes to further strengthen the brand design R&D force and constantly improve the brand incubation and cultivation ability around the industrial resources of the Zhongda cloth market.

　　 "Digital transformation is no longer a multiple choice question"

The time to produce a garment has dropped by leaps and bounds from 40 to 60 minutes to just 4 to 7 minutes, and the produced knitted fabric is lighter, thinner and softer... At this Guangdong Fashion Week, three leading knitting enterprises, Santoni, Yingyun Technology and Bonas, created a series of 28 needle seamless superfine knitting smart shows, and the industry was shocked by "smart manufacturing+high-end knitting technology".

In recent years, the online mode of the textile and clothing industry has gradually taken shape, and the rise of "small orders and quick reaction" has also enabled more knitting enterprises at the production end to enter the ranks of digital production. "Fastness is the first competitiveness, which requires not only a quick response to meet the market, but also a quality guarantee. Training the internal skills of the products has become the top priority of major knitting enterprises," said Lan Cangcang, deputy general manager of Dongguan Yingyun.

The traditional full-automatic computerized flat knitting machine generally uses 12 and 14 stitches for thick and thin knitting products, and the smallest knitting needle can only reach 18 stitches. The more stitches, the finer the stitches, the more exquisite the knitted fabric will be. It takes 40 to 60 minutes to knit a ready to wear ruffle pattern with a 14 needle machine. If 18 needle superfine needle is used, the knitting time will be longer.

Not only that, traditional machines are also limited by needle types. If we want to expand multi category products, we need to purchase and invest again or more times, which will inevitably increase the number of machine operators and the cost of enterprises.

This 28 needle seamless superfine knitting intelligent rounding machine can achieve integrated forming, and the time to produce a garment is shortened to 4-7 minutes. The 10 times speed increase greatly improves the production efficiency and reduces the manual production time.

The most exciting thing is that it can also produce multiple types of clothes in one machine, such as sweaters, underwear, sportswear, shirts, T-shirts, cotton padded clothes, etc. "This means that clothes all year round can be produced in one machine, thick or thin. And thin clothes are more light and breathable, the fabric is more delicate, and the feel is more soft." Lan Cangcang said.

"Digital transformation is no longer an option for the clothing industry, and no enterprise can stay out of it." In the view of Chen Bo, CEO of Chunxiao Technology, the transfer of low-end textile and clothing industry chain is irreversible, and only high-end manufacturing can stand at the top of the global industry. "To create an accurate matching supply chain, efficient operation of production and marketing collaboration, and use original research and development and full chain digital operation to drive the growth of brand performance, we can create the irreplaceable brand."

"The digital transformation of garment enterprises is still in the primary stage, that is, digital marketing." Wen Danfeng, chief data officer of Guangdong Garment Industry Association, believes that we should give play to the leading role of large enterprises and drive the "chain" digital transformation of small and medium-sized enterprises upstream and downstream of the industrial chain supply chain. At the same time, we refined the typical digital transformation model of SMEs focusing on the standardization and efficiency of subdivided industries, which is conducive to replication and promotion, and constantly promoted the digital and intelligent transformation of industries.

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