Zhang Yanhao: Strong design is strong at the show

——Interview with Zhang Yanjian, vice president of China Textile Industry Association, to make a major change at the 6th China Textile and Apparel Trade Show (CTAF) (Paris show) held on September 19-22 - as the most important national exhibition group, CTAF The Chinese organizers worked with the Frankfurt (France) company to embed the CTAF group in the debut APPAREL SOURCING Paris Apparel Fair ("APP"). During the exhibition, business and trade atmosphere was active.

The reporter learned at the exhibition site that the APP exhibition and the Texworld fabric exhibition held at the same time in the same place, so that the exhibition to obtain a higher starting point, give full play to the window of the international professional trade exhibitions, platforms and ties to help exhibitors to better understand the European market demand. In order to understand the specific conditions of the exhibition, the reporter interviewed Zhang Yanfu, vice president of the China Textile Industry Association.

Reporter: Why did you organize the APP show and the Texworld fabric fair in the same period?

Zhang Yanlu: In Paris, there are some internationally-renowned exhibitions of the same type as Texworld. Although some domestic companies have already participated spontaneously, these exhibitions have their own special orientation, and they are far from the needs of Chinese companies. Companies do not have the strength to become Mainstream. The APP is one of the sponsors of the China National Textile and Apparel Council. The only "one-stop" clothing procurement exhibition held in Europe is also an exhibition focusing on Chinese companies. This exhibition has more Chinese characteristics and is conducive to Chinese companies to display Chinese brands in an overall image, so that participating companies can form a joint force.

Reporter: At this exhibition, what is China's brand trying to bring to Europe?

Zhang Yanhao: This year's show brought new feelings to the European market in highlighting design elements and promoting fashion purchasing concepts. Including China, the entire world's textile and apparel brands are increasingly focusing on the strength of designers. In the past, designers were mainly divided into brand designers and craft designers, which facilitated foreign companies to design and produce good models for Chinese enterprises to process and produce. With the continuous improvement of China's fashion design, we hope to provide European buyers with self-designed clothes through the platform of the exhibition. Through this approach, we can promote the continuous growth of Chinese designers.

Reporter: In your opinion, where is the difference between Chinese designers and European designers?

Zhang Yanbiao: In the past two days, I inspected the Baltic states, including Lithuania and Latvia. These countries are important garment manufacturers within the European Union. They pay great attention to the cultivation of design literacy. In particular, the designers of professional schools in Lithuania travel to Italy, France and other places to fully absorb and digest fashion information and become familiar with the entire apparel industry chain. The production and manufacturing link has the ability to fully produce ready-to-wear garments and can accurately plan the marketing of the products. This is the traditional advantage of European countries in training costume designers.

In the rapid development of the Chinese fashion industry for more than ten years, we have clearly seen that the professional knowledge of the basic knowledge, professional skills, and ethics of Chinese fashion designers has been enriched. For example, at the show, I learned from a tie company in Zhangzhou that before the development of new products, the company often organizes designers to collect winds from all over the world, analyzes fashion trends, and develops and manufactures fabrics of blended fabrics, polyesters, etc., according to the ups and downs of the international economy. tie. This is the key to the company’s long-term existence of numerous stable external orders.

However, designers like this are still a minority in China's garment industry. From the viewpoint of professional accomplishment and understanding and understanding of the industry, there is still a certain gap between Chinese designers and European designers, and they cannot fully meet the needs of the market.

Reporter: How can Chinese designers quickly adapt to market demands?

Zhang Yanyu: I think that Chinese designers should look more and understand fashion information. The majority of companies need to create more development opportunities for designers. For example, at the texworld fabric show, eight young designers showed their talented static works. I think that in future exhibitions, we can learn from this form of display and focus on building a display platform for young designers. This is good for the growth of Chinese designers and the growth of apparel brands.

In addition, we must pay attention to cultivating the professional skills of designers from product design to market research, operation planning, drawing drawings, fabric matching, plate making process, revision of prototypes, product launch, information feedback, design supplements, and store display. Improve the overall level of our designers.

Reporter: It is not easy for Chinese brands to establish their reputation in the international market. Do you expect designers to have enough patience for promoting the brand?

Zhang Yanqi: Fashion designers are the guides of fashion trends and are the key to enhancing the popularity of Chinese brands. There is no doubt about this. The industry has raised this issue high-profile for many years. Why has it been promoted? This point is enough to show that raising brand awareness requires a long and continuous development process.

At present, the domestic market is changing with each passing day, and spending power has soared and the huge consumer market has created enormous room for the development of enterprises. This is the best development opportunity for Chinese companies. In addition, there are also many overseas brands entering the current domestic market, and our brands can learn and improve in the competition. I think that domestic companies growing up in such a good environment can allow more Chinese consumers to recognize the brand and then push the brand to the world. It can be said that if the brand can not be affirmed and developed in the domestic market, it is more difficult to go to the world.

Reporter: What are your expectations for next year's show?

Zhang Yanbiao: From the data point of view, from January to July 2011, China’s textile and apparel exports totaled US$137.74 billion, up by 25.58% year-on-year. Among them, exports to the EU countries totaled 37.319 billion US dollars, an increase of 29.62% year-on-year, accounting for a large proportion. From this, it can be seen that both the domestic market and the foreign market have increased their apparel sales. This is a good thing.

However, at a deeper level, China's garment companies are experiencing problems such as rising raw materials, labor costs, energy costs, clean pollution-free costs, shortage of funds, and changes in exchange rates. In this situation, how to provide a better platform for the development of enterprises, so that they can create new value through the exhibition, get new opportunities, for the organizer is also a subject worthy of study.

For overseas exhibitions, from the experiences of the association's exhibitions in recent years (American Exhibition, Paris Exhibition), the exhibition added many contents according to the changes in the market, which promoted the rapid development of China's clothing trade. Of course, this is inseparable from the necessary services provided by the association for Chinese enterprises. The demand of the international market does not allow us to limit ourselves to the current scope of services. We must provide more services for enterprises according to local conditions. This is because the era of China's textile products winning by quantity has passed.