Hebei Gaoyang Small Towels Play A Big Game

What can a small towel do?

In Gaoyang, Hebei, the "hometown of Chinese textiles", towels are not new for antibacterial and mosquito prevention. Towels here can sing songs, decompress, change color, and customize patterns.

The picture shows the unzipped towel. Photographed by Xie Yiguan

All this is due to the efforts of Gaoyang textile enterprises in recent years to get rid of low price competition and drive high-quality development of enterprises with innovation.

Gaoyang textile industry, which began in the late Ming Dynasty, flourished in the late Qing Dynasty, and flourished in the early Republic of China, has a history of more than 400 years. It once enjoyed the reputation of "no miscellaneous trees on Guilin Mountain, and Gaoyang calico is new all the year round". Today, with a large scale of industry and many related enterprises, it is a veritable "textile city".

However, due to the fact that most of the textile enterprises in the county are traditional family enterprises, there have been many problems for a long time, such as backward business philosophy, single product structure, and focusing on processing and production. In the face of fierce market competition, enterprises often imitate other products with good sales and adopt low price competition strategy, thus forming a disorderly competition situation.

Imitation will only lead enterprises to a "dead end". Aware of this, Gaoyang textile enterprises began to adopt differentiated competitive strategies and innovate based on their own advantages.

The picture shows grass and trees dyed towel. Photographed by Xie Yiguan

However, as many small and medium-sized enterprises in Gaoyang County are seeking innovation and change, they often make small troubles and want to innovate but do not know how to innovate.

To this end, Gaoyang County actively guides enterprises to innovate, inviting textile experts from Tianjin University of Technology, Donghua University Textile College and other universities to teach innovation skills hand in hand.

At present, Gaoyang textile enterprises have independently established more than 10 various technical centers and 1 provincial industrial design center. The R&D investment of enterprises has increased from less than 2% at the beginning to 10% now, far exceeding the level of domestic peers.

Now, when we enter the center of towel and music industry, we can see a variety of innovative products.

Beautiful smart label towels that can indicate the best use period of towels through color changes, and Guochao cultural and creative towels woven into Dunhuang Feitian, which can show the unzipped towels with words by twitching the thread, and personalized customized bath towels that can print mobile phone photos on them... all demonstrate the innovation level of Gaoyang textile industry.

The picture shows the staff demonstrating the "Dunhuang Flying Sky" cultural and creative products made of organic colored cotton. Photographed by Li Taiyuan

In the process of innovation, Gaoyang textile enterprises also integrate traditional textile culture into product design, research and development, production and other aspects to enhance the economic value of products.

In the Yongliang towel exhibition area of towel music, a "singing towel" attracts people to stop. According to the person in charge of the exhibition hall, users can hear the wonderful Kunqu Opera and enjoy the charm of traditional opera by simply sweeping the QR code on the back of the towel.

The picture shows the "towel that can sing songs" displayed in the towel music industry city center. Photographed by Li Taiyuan

Duan Hui, the design director of Hebei Yongliang Textile Co., Ltd., mentioned when telling reporters about his creative ideas, "Gaoyang County is the birthplace of northern Kunqu Opera. We specially selected classic characters from Kunqu operas such as Peony Pavilion and A Dream of Red Mansions, and presented them on towels with digital embroidery techniques, so that consumers can enjoy intangible cultural heritage while using towels."

Product innovation also brings tangible benefits to enterprises. The company also cooperated with the Art College of Hebei University to hold a "towel maker" activity, and the resulting "cotton pocket" series received a large number of orders.

It is better to find a new way to have a "creative meal" than to "fight hard" with similar big brands. When diversified creativity is combined with advanced textile technology, Gaoyang Textile also stands out from the homogeneous competition, realizing the transformation from Gaoyang weaving to Gaoyang creation.

(Source: China News Network)