The year's plan starts with spring, and it's the season for changing clothes again. As one of the most developed cities in China's garment industry, Shenzhen has evolved from the early "three comes and one compensation" and OEM production to becoming a highland of original brands today. It actively leverage its technological innovation advantages to promote prosperity through innovation, striving to advance "Made in China" to "Designed in China" and "Global fashion", and continuously create more value for the market.
At present, the clothing market has entered the "seasonal change" mode, and merchants are getting ready and actively preparing for the new season. When visiting the fashion districts and clothing markets in Shenzhen, the reporter saw that the models displayed in the clothing stores had changed into seasonal new products. Consumers and buyers were carrying shopping bags of all sizes, strolling around and choosing clothes.
As one of the most developed cities in China's garment industry, Shenzhen boasts a large number of original garment brands, a complete industrial chain and a remarkable scale effect. The 2025 Shenzhen (Longhua) · Milan Twin-City Fashion Week held recently in Italy comprehensively showcased the innovative achievements of the fashion industries in both Shenzhen and Milan. Where does the vigorous vitality of Shenzhen's garment industry come from, and how does it promote prosperity through "innovation"?
Create your own brand and redesign it
The garment industry in Shenzhen started at the beginning of the establishment of the special economic zone and rose to prominence through foreign processing and export. In the early days, when the Internet was underdeveloped and online shopping platforms had not yet emerged, the wholesale and contract manufacturing businesses of clothing were active. Li Fang, the president of the Lixiu Fashion Industry Association in Shenzhen, said that Shenzhen used to be an important purchasing place for many mainland clothing wholesalers. In recent years, with the rise of e-commerce models and consumers' increasing emphasis on quality consumption, wholesale merchants have no choice but to seek new development paths.
How to break through the problem? "Everyone began to value quality and originality, and let the products speak for themselves." " Li Fang said that in order to adapt to market changes, many traditional enterprises have actively embarked on the path of building their own brands to enhance the added value of their products and market competitiveness. As a result, leading enterprises such as Masfil, Ying 'er, and Gelis, as well as a large number of well-known domestic and foreign original designer brands like Yizhihui, Tianyi, and Ouberano, have emerged. The establishment of these brands and the early successful transformation of enterprises have greatly inspired the clothing industry in Shenzhen, driving the creation of a large number of innovative design brands such as Kashimiya, Saiguchang and Moushang. At present, the proportion of the output value of self-owned brand products in Shenzhen has risen from less than 5% in the early 1990s to over 90%.
Zhao Huizhou is a representative figure in Shenzhen's fashion industry and design field. She has successively founded the original women's clothing brands "EACHWAY Yizhihui" and "HUI Hui", dedicated to showcasing the charm of traditional Chinese culture and the unique appeal of Eastern women through design. Zhao Huizhou recalled, "When I first arrived in Shenzhen in the late 1990s, it was still 'a desolate place'." At that time, there was no concept of independent designers in China. When they heard that I was going to create my own brand, everyone thought it was an impossible thing. Nowadays, I have been deeply engaged in the clothing industry with an original brand for over 20 years. This is a process of continuous running and also a process of the brand's original accumulation. My love for clothing drives me to promote the clothing I love to the world. In September 2024, Zhao Huizhou led the haute couture and high-end ready-to-wear brand "HUI Hui" to make its 14th appearance at Milan Fashion Week in Italy. Among them, the brand's Spring/Summer 2025 collection "Grand Tour" was inspired by the ancient poem "Grand Tour" by the Tang Dynasty poet Du Fu. Through traditional Chinese intangible cultural heritage techniques such as batik, dyeing and tie-dyeing, it vividly showcases the charm of Eastern aesthetics and the power of Chinese women, earning high praise from the international fashion industry. Zhao Huizhou said, "In the future, we will continue to uphold the concepts of innovation and inheritance, integrate more traditional craftsmanship and cultural elements into fashion design, explore the path of the integration of fashion and culture, and bring more unique and charming fashion works to global consumers."
The original design brand "Saiguchang" in Shenzhen also focuses on Chinese-style design. This brand takes the unique fabric weaving and dyeing techniques of the Lingnan region and the national intangible cultural heritage of Xiangyunsha as its creative starting point. Through a distinctive Oriental aesthetic design style and a natural and sustainable fashion concept, it promotes the revitalization of Xiangyunsha. "Designing Chinese-style clothing is actually also about 'creating culture'." " Feng Junzhu, the brand manager of "Shaiguchang", said that Xiangyunsha is mostly in dark colors with a sense of The Times. Many people think it is dull and old-fashioned, and its cultural background was once ignored. The "Sun-drying Field" has enhanced the contemporary and fashionable nature of Xiangyunsha through innovative patterns, designs and colors. In the design, the brand has also incorporated traditional auspicious patterns such as the Treasure Flower and the nine-colored deer, making Xiangyunsha increasingly popular among consumers. With the rise of new Chinese-style clothing, the market for Chinese-style fabrics has remained red-hot. Industry insiders predict that by 2025, the retail scale of China's Xiangyunsha market will exceed 110 billion yuan. Xiangyunsha is rapidly being accepted by the market and demonstrating huge market potential.
Strong industries through top-down and bottom-up interaction
Entering the Lixiu Clothing Culture Street located in Nanshan District, Shenzhen, wholesalers from all over are dragging suitcases, shuttling back and forth among the various buildings. This district is home to over 3,000 business entities and more than 2,000 original fashion designers. Its business forms cover all links of the clothing industry chain, including fabric supply, clothing design, production and processing, and sales. The industry serves nearly one million employees and is the modern fashion industrial cluster with the most complete industrial chain, the most dynamic and the most influential in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and even the whole country.
Fabric is a key link in the design and development of clothing. It not only affects the appearance and texture of the clothing, but also directly relates to the comfort of the wearer and the durability of the clothing. The development and utilization of new fabrics have effectively enhanced the clothing design and innovation in the Lixiu Clothing Culture Street. The Shangshangcheng International Fabric and Accessories Trading Center located in the block houses over 100 fabric and accessories enterprises, covering various types of fabrics such as light textile, fine textile and coarse textile, as well as various accessories like zippers, buttons and packaging.
Among the numerous fabrics in the trading center, the silk category is the most diverse. He Renjian, deputy secretary-general of the Group Standardization Technical Committee of the Shenzhen Clothing Supply Chain Association, said that although Shenzhen does not produce silk, the city and its surrounding areas are home to supporting industries such as silk base fabric, dyeing and printing. The silk category of Lixiu Clothing Culture Street has a national market share of over 50%. It is an important distribution center for high-end silk and special silk, and also a "must-win territory" in the silk industry.
Entering the "Kexiya" store on the second floor of the trading center, Fu Qiang, the person in charge of the South China Sales center of Zhejiang Kexiya Smart Textile Technology Co., LTD., was pouring water on a silk waterproof down jacket. The water droplets rolled to the ground, but the jacket was not soaked at all. This is the "Water Dance" silk functional fabric launched by Kexia in 2024. It uses a new black technology to form sub-microscopic rough protrusions on the silk surface, featuring a superhydrophobic protective film similar to the surface of a lotus leaf. All kinds of common liquids in daily life are difficult to penetrate into the interior of the fabric, thus achieving the effects of water resistance, oil resistance and stain resistance. "Water Dance" mainly addresses the three major pain points of traditional silk fabrics, namely, being prone to dirt, difficult to maintain, and being restricted by seasons when worn. "" Fu Qiang stated that through technological innovation and special weaving techniques for fabrics, "Water Dance" is not only water-resistant, oil-resistant and stain-resistant, but also more resilient and has a longer service life. It has now been successfully applied to outdoor clothing and down jackets.
Fu Qiang said, "Kexiya" has also successively launched fabrics such as sun-protective lightweight silk, machine-washable silk, and crisp silk. Among them, the sun protection UPF value of the sun protection lightweight silk fabric reaches up to 329, which is equivalent to eight times the national standard. They also persist in making efforts in cultural empowerment. In 2024, they launched the "China ing" series of silk fabrics, forming a "Chinese Five Colors" color system. They have established a "one-stop" color model from multiple dimensions such as main colors, secondary colors, patterns, and scenes, providing more diverse color options and matching solutions for downstream clothing design and development.
Innovative fabric development effectively supports the original quality of clothing. Since 2010, the original clothing brand "Modsea", which has grown up in the Lixiu Clothing Culture Street, is one of the downstream customers of "Kexia". In its 2024 autumn "Jade and Radiance" collection of clothing design, the design team adopted the "Butterfly Satin" green silk created by Kexiya using digital artificial intelligence weaving technology. The fabric, with its brilliant colors and soft texture, makes the clothing more aesthetically pleasing and lustrous, and is widely favored by purchasers.
Using high-quality silk as the main fabric, the brand has launched a series of exquisite, elegant, simple and modern high-end fashion. Li Luyi, the founder and design director of "Modsea", said, "The initial development investment for original design is large and the cycle is long, which is a rather difficult path. However, maintaining the independence and originality of the design and taking a high-quality and value-enhancing route have also enabled us to win the brand loyalty of downstream purchasers and target consumer groups." The improvement of product power has driven up the brand's market competitiveness and appeal.
To enhance the innovation capacity of clothing design, the district is still making continuous efforts. Li Fang said that over the years, Shenzhen's fashion districts have adhered to the principle of "going out and bringing in", leading original brands to participate in domestic and international exhibitions and fashion weeks. At the same time, they have been cultivating international original clothing brands with high added value from aspects such as cultural creativity, design and research and development, education and training, and cross-border and cross-city exchanges. Nowadays, the fashion index of women's clothing in this district leads the country by 3 to 7 days. Nearly 8% of the country's fashionable clothing is exported here, and the speed of new arrivals is zero time difference with the international level. Next, the district will focus on building a brand-new market element field of "people, goods and places", promoting the "strengthening, supplementing and extending" of the clothing industry chain.
Xiao Youjie, the general manager of Shenzhen Huahaida (International) Clothing Trading Center, said that Shenzhen is taking professional markets, fashion streets and other core industrial clusters to continuously enhance its original design capabilities, constantly increase the influence and popularity of brand clothing, help the innovation and competitiveness of the clothing industry to continuously improve, and constantly meet the fashion consumption needs of the people.
Diversified business forms promote consumption
Nowadays, the scenarios for clothing consumption are becoming increasingly diverse. Against this backdrop, how to continuously enhance the appeal of professional clothing markets is a major issue that relevant practitioners must confront.
Journalists visited several clothing markets in Shenzhen and found that wholesalers are increasingly focusing on the retail experience, while retailers are reducing costs through large-scale purchasing. Meanwhile, the interaction between online and offline, as well as the coordination between inside and outside the market, continuously enhances the efficiency of commodity circulation, providing consumers with more flexible and diverse shopping options. This has also become a key factor for professional clothing markets to maintain their freshness.
The Huahaida (International) Clothing Trading Center located in Luohu District, Shenzhen, has gathered over 500 clothing, bag and hat brands by introducing various business forms such as fast fashion and designer brands, forming a virtuous cycle of integrated wholesale and retail and mutual complementarity.
Arriving at the "Anlifina" women's clothing store on the 8th floor of the clothing trading center, one can see the store manager, Gao Liwei, busy checking the goods and placing orders with the manufacturer. These are the wholesale goods selected and ordered by the retailer in the store, and they will be directly dispatched from the manufacturer later. There are discount offers for wholesale goods ordered from the store, which is very attractive to customers. Apart from wholesale business, retail is also the major part of "Anlivena's" sales. Gao Liwei said that currently, the brand has a total of four branches in Huahaida, catering to different age groups ranging from 20 to 70 years old.
Shenzhen Wanjinlong Culture Development Co., Ltd. has chosen a business model of coordinated development of online and offline. Li Chunju, the general manager of the company, introduced that in terms of offline operations, since 2017, she has opened two brick-and-mortar stores under the brand "Meijishide", mainly dealing in women's casual wear and other items. Seven private domain communities have been established online, reaching over 7,000 users and offering a vast array of self-operated products that are "all-category, high-quality and cost-effective".
Relying on digital means, we can more accurately capture market demands, optimize inventory management and enhance customer experience. Offline stores have become important entry points and experience venues for online traffic. Customers can place orders online and then come to the store to try on or pick up their goods. Li Chunju said that after the online platform established a full-category supply chain, it gathered multiple categories, which could meet the diverse consumption demands of different age groups and occupational groups. It transformed from a business targeting only one woman to one targeting the entire family.
Currently, live-streaming sales are booming, but a reporter's visit found that live-streaming sales are not "hot" here. Online live streaming also has a counterproductive effect. After our attempts, we found that the online model has drawbacks for professional markets and clothing enterprises that focus on original design and brand development. Xiao Youjie said that the clothing industry in Shenzhen follows a brand-oriented development path. The live-streaming sales model that wins by volume is not friendly to original design brands that require large initial investment and have long development cycles. For professional markets, the "low price and high volume" model will lead to the inflow of inferior goods, damage the industry's reputation and be detrimental to sustainable development.
As consumers increasingly value cost performance and consumption experience, specialized markets that develop in clusters and in an integrated manner are becoming more and more popular. Xiao Youjie said that professional markets focus on cooperation with external supply chains, design institutions, industry associations, etc. Inside the market, they precisely match the consumption demands of the general public through activities such as brand collaborations, theme exhibitions, and discount season marketing. The multiple advantages have also brought many "Hong Kong customers" to Huahaida. Luohu has become the first stop for many Hong Kong people to consume in the mainland. In response to this, Huahaida has specially set up shuttle vehicles to facilitate the round trips of "Hong Kong tourists" after customs clearance. It also regularly invites Hong Kong Internet celebrities and influencers to experience it, attracting more Hong Kong people to come and consume.
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