Visit Report:Shanghai Spring Shows in the eye of the overseas students

Editors note： The co-location Spring Shows， including Intertextile Shanghai Apparel Fabrics – Spring Edition， Yarn Expo Spring， PH Value and China International Fashion Fair （CHIC）， shined in Shanghai this March， bringing apparel fabrics， yarns and fibers， knitwear and other fashion garments under one roof. Taking this good opportunity， Xiao Lan， Teacher of College of Textiles， Donghua University， organized the overseas students to attend the show and asked them to write visit reports. Though the same show they visited， different perspectives and focuses were expressed through reports. The editor of China Textile selected four of them as a representative to share with the readers.

Author： Salma Abaoubida

From： Engineering School， ENSAIT， France

Major： Technical Textile

Report Focus： CHIC

Adviser： Xiao Lan

Introduction

Chic 2015 is the 23rd fashion international trade held in Shanghai. The main industry is apparel， clothing， fashion and accessories. All type of people can attend this exhibition except children. Some are visitors and others are suppliers or exhibitors. The building is gigantic and is divided into two huge parts， while the first area is for fashion and accessories and the second one is for fabrics， yarns and technical clothing sector.

Exhibitors are from everywhere： China， South Korea， India， Germany， France， Italy， Turkey， Canada...

Most of their products are non-woven， woven， and knitted products which are made in their home town and some are made in China.

Clothing and apparel

In recent years， China has started to focus on more sophisticated textile products， and the production of some basic products has shifted to other countries in Southeast Asia as Cambodia and Vietnam. This trend can also be observed by the rising volume of textile machinery ordered from Japan and Germany to these countries.

Exhibitors in the field of fashion clothing are very various， and the majority of their products is made in China. 90% of their products are local and they export around 10% to other countries such as Russia. This number looks lower comparatively with other European brands which know huge success and have an excellent reputation especially in Asias world and in eyes of Chinese consumers who seem very familiarized with many famous luxurious brand and European trend.

China has become a dominant exporter， attracting manufacturing facilities from many different sectors and geographies. Textile producers located not only in developed countries but also in low income countries relocated facilities to China.

Models in Chic 2015

Models in the center of exhibition are all from East Europe especially Russia and no one is from China； they identify the European beauty which is very brilliant among Asian people. They also advertised Paris the capital of trend and sophisticated brands.

Fur products

Fur coats and fur scarves are mainly produced by animals skin such as fox and wolf. However， those brands seem unknown and still circulating only inside of China.

Foreign brands

Many factors lead to the opportunity to achieve top luxurious brand because China lacks the required expertise and nowadays a lot of factories have been moved from China to other countries where labor cost is cheaper like Vietnam， Indonesia， Bangladesh， and Thailand and also to European countries like Turkey the second supplier after China.

Faced challenges

China is faced with several challenges， for example：

·Uprising of prices of cotton， oil， and other raw materials

·Lack of well-recognized brands in the international market

·Money supply rose by 52% in the past two years， while goods coming out of China cost more and business will go where costs are lower. Chinas “weak spots” are in low margins. Some manufacturing such as garments， toys， etc. could head to Vietnam， Indonesia and India.

Lower costs alone will not limit the scales. However， many western companies head to India for outsourcing manufacturing parts. Clients prefer India call for sensitivity and manufacturing in low to medium volumes with high degrees of variation in products. Prediction in 2020 says that Indian companies will lead the pack in customer collaboration， a position they already hold.

More sophisticated products also require more qualified workers. And more qualified workers are more capable to organize themselves and negotiate better working conditions. Once this happens， the drastic existing labor cost advantage might start shrinking. It is true that higher margins allow producer to pay better salaries， but on the other hand， the lack of labor bargain power in China contributes greatly to the existing advantageous low production costs.

Technical textile clothing

Chinas textile products dont focus only on fashion clothing and fabrics， instead， it has a solid knowledge in the field of technical textile for military， sport， apparel for firefighter and non woven fabrics designed for automotive， aeronautic， aerospace and technical sector.

Recyclable textile and sustainability

Recently， China has been paying more attention to the recycling textile and its benefits on the environments safety to reduce pollution and avoid disposable fabrics which impacts badly on the environment， China call for a green eco fashion which is environmentally friendly also means ecological fashion that respects citizens health and contribute to sustainable development.

Author： Mohamed Mouhib， Bousnina

From： Engineering School， ENSAIT，France

Major： Technical Textile

Report Focus： CHIC

Adviser： Xiao Lan

Today the textile industry is well diversified， and there are many applications in this field. Nowadays China has one of the largest textile manufacturers in the world. In this context we visited china international fashion fair in shanghai.

At the critical moment of transformation of Chinese clothing industry， CHIC has discerned the change of the industry and taken responsibility for creating new brand value with its extended and pertinent services.

It has become the most influential clothing fair in Asia with such aims as：

·Integrate commercial platform for the demands of business negotiation

·International cooperation

·Resource acquiring

·Brand release

·Match-making activities

The exhibition was composed from two parts： clothing and raw materials. Each part provides a lot of choices and gives the opportunity to discover new products and new materials.

Clothing

There were brands from different countries like Europe， South Korea， China and India. The most of them are new brands of high quality. They try to offer good products with innovation and a lot of imagination.

There were also some traditional clothes from different countries.

Raw materials

In the exhibition， they showed the raw materials， weaving machines， different yarns and textiles. They presented also some old Chinese machines.

Finally， China International Fashion Fair 2015 was a good opportunity to present new brands and to reconstruct exhibition value.

Author： Annika Hanel

From： Textile and Design， Reutlingen University， Germany

Major： textile technology/textile management

Report Focus： CHIC

Adviser： Xiao Lan

After we arrived at the Centre of Exhibition and Convention we got our Visitor passes. We enter the exposition and explored the Area. At first we went to the fashion part called “CHIC”.

There were a lot to see. The companies presented their new collections， most of which were in a very creative way.

One of the most impressive presentations was made by the brand Fairwhale Jeans： They created a room made out of mirrors. The visitors were able to enter this building. Inside you were able to get a closer look at their topic， called “past， present & future”.

Another interesting observation was how many fur-companies there were. There were even a catwalk just with jackets and other clothes made of fur.

In Germany or generally speaking in Europe， you would never find such a big amount of fur in an exposition like that， which is definitely a difference between the Asian and the European markets.

They also presented the new colours for this season. There were a lot of pastel tones but also strong red and blue tones.

After we finished with the first building we went to the second one. In this building were mostly international brands.

There were separated areas for the German and also for the French companies. Most of the others were from Korea.

Germany was represented by Roekel， Krüger， Abro， Picard and some more companies.

I was surprised when I saw that Krüger was there as well. Because I did not expect that the traditional clothes from Germany have a huge market here in China.

I did not go to the French room but it was bigger than the German room and much fuller. So it got very clear that the Chinese people like French fashion and the whole French culture very much.

This became even clearer when we entered the next building. There were also a lot of brands which presented their clothes. A lot of them had on their posters some impressions about France like the tour de Eiffel. It was very obvious that they tried to imitate the French fashion and lifestyle.

After we finished our visit at “CHIC”， we went to “Intertextile”. It was a separate part with the focus on fabrics. Most of the presentations were about recycling of clothes. It was very interesting. Because especially in nowadays it is important to think about the consequences of our consume behaviour.

Author： Sarah Kim

From： Textile and Design， Reutlingen University， Germany

Major： textile technology/textile management

Report Focus： Intertextile， CHIC， and Yarn Expo

Adviser： Xiao Lan

In recent years the emergence of fast fashion has changed the global apparel industry. Instead of delivering only four fashion collections a year， fashion brands are under the pressure to deliver ten or more collections a year， which can only be possible if companies control the whole supply chain. Therefore， I think it was a really smart idea to put Intertextile Shanghai， the China International Fashion Fair and the Yarn Expo together into one exposition and cover the entire textile value chain.

CHIC

My first impression was that everything was kept really spacious. This was very pleasant. I also really liked the designs of many stands. They put a lot of efforts in it and had many creative ideas.

On the other hand， I felt that sometimes there was maybe too much space for too little collection pieces. For example， “Fairwhale Jeans” had a stand made completely out of mirrows， which was really impressive. But inside their stands you could find almost nothing.

I noticed that Korean Fashion is really popular in China. I could see many Korean brands when I visited some shopping malls before. In the hall of international brands， half of the area was taken by Korean designs. Korean apparel is very trendy and cool. The clothes have interesting cuts， prints and are made of nice fabric. I feel that many Chinese brands are still lacking in design innovation up to now， but I think these days they are focusing more and more on design. Furthermore there was a small exhibition featuring some young designers， including a graduate from DHU.

German brands tried to score with high quality， but the whole area was less visited than the French area， which was really crowded.

It is funny to see that many Chinese people are crazy about France， especially Paris and how the French Style is portrait in Chinese Fashion brands.

Even though we were not allowed to enter every stand， compared to other fashion and textile expositions， for instance “Premier Vision” in Paris， we were still able to look at a lot of things and in most of the places you could even take pictures. I was really surprised about that.

Intertextile Shanghai & Yarn Expo

In general， everything was really well organized. All the same type of products or material could be found in one area.

Sustainability has been one of the hot topics over the last few years， since consumers are becoming more and more aware of protecting the environment.

In the area called the “All About Sustainability” Zone， both producers and consumers could get information about sustainability and new concepts. There were many companies focusing on a responsible production with fair employment， a green production， saving energy or water and green products made out of recycling materials.

Furthermore there was a big area for bio cotton yarns.