"As soon as I go out, the streets are full of furry."
Don't get me wrong, this isn't an idyllic scene full of sheep, but the recent "fleece to man" phenomenon on the streets.
The streets are full of classic fleece coats.
2022 has just entered the winter, and fleece has become the tacit understanding of this young people.
"There are 7 post-90s in the office, and 5 of them wore fleece at the same time last week."
In fact, before the advent of fleece, winter was the domain of down jackets and furs.
If the down jacket gradually got rid of the label of "fashion insulator" by virtue of the joint name with the trendy brand, fur has a sense of noble lady's atmosphere from the beginning -
The popularity of fleece in winter seems somewhat incomprehensible.
How can this "earthy and ugly" fabric make young people "really fragrant"?
How hot is fleece?
Rustic, old-fashioned, and unrelated to fashion, is many people's first impression of fleece.
This soft and fluffy material is nicknamed the "flat" of fur.
The price of a fleece coat ranges from tens of yuan to two or three hundred, far lower than the thousands of fur coats.
Nowadays, fleece is becoming a "warm artifact" for more and more young consumers.
Enter "fleece" on the e-commerce platform, sorted by sales, and all the top 9 products have sold more than 10,000;
Search for "cotton clothing" with similar price levels, sorted by sales, only the first model has sold more than 10,000;
The popularity and sales of "cardigans" and "sweaters" are also far less than that of fleece.
Baidu index also shows that since 2018, the popularity of fleece in winter has increased year by year, and there is still a trend of growth this year.
Source: Baidu Index
"The fashionable babes on the street are secretly wearing fleece behind their backs."
In addition to fleece jackets, there are even fleece pajamas on the street.
If the former fleece still carried the label of "dirt low", now it has returned again and has transformed into Nihulu Shake Fleece.
According to Flygua data, the fleece coat has reached 390 million views on social media.
Source: Feigua Data
Whether it is a migrant worker on the commuter road or a boy and girl with a student spirit, the figure of fleece appears in the selfie in the mirror.
In the sharing description around the appearance of fleece, keywords such as "good matching", "good looking", "foreign style" and "fashionable" appear more and more frequently, even surpassing "keeping warm".
Without a piece of fleece, I am already embarrassed to say that I am keeping up with fashion trends.
Fleece with legging (yoga pants) has become a fashion trend in winter.
Is fleece really fashionable?
The answer is probably yes.
UNIQLO, which "holds red fleece", has added 16 new fleece clothes in the domestic market this year, and has also launched designer joint models.
Japanese fashion brand Human made, last Monday launched 5 fleece clothing items, each with 2-3 color combinations.
Fleece has even spread to accessories – everything can be fleece.
In the past, luxury brands such as Chanel and Louis Vuitton launched fleece bags, and later clothing brands such as Fendi and Sei Carina launched fleece fisherman hats.
Source: Louis Vuitton official Weibo
Street fashion brands such as Converse and Vance have also added fleece elements to their board shoes.
With the entry of major luxury brands and trend brands, the fleece has changed from a "dirty and ugly" fur to a synonym for fashion trends.
Rocking fleece, from high-end to civilian
The popularity of fleece in winter is not only because it is favored by the fashion circle, but also because of its relatively cheap price.
Uniqlo's highest-selling fleece jacket costs only 99 yuan.
But today's "affordable for everyone" fleece was a high-end product when it first appeared.
At the beginning of the last century, wool was widely used because of its warmth and sweat-absorbing properties and was considered a high-performance textile.
In the 30s, nylon fabrics appeared, which had the advantages of light weight, good wear resistance and easy dyeing compared to wool, which impacted the development of wool clothing.
Malden Mills, an American fabric manufacturer who made his fortune in the wool business, began to face the dilemma of difficulty in sustainable profitability.
By chance, its fleece fabric was bought by the then popular outdoor brand Patagonia to make a fleece jacket.
Patagonia is known as the "GUCCI of outdoor sports brands." Source: POPEYE, October 2020
With the advantages of lightness, warmth and easy drying, the sales of fleece clothing are very considerable, and even become the company's "star product".
This gave hope to Malden Mills – the two companies decided to work together to develop new fabrics based on fleece jackets and change the disadvantage of fleece clothing.
And so the fleece was born.
Shake fleece is really "shaken". Source: YouTube @School of Textiles "Knitting action of Fleece || School Of Textiles》
The manufacturing process of fleece is more complex than fleece, and it needs to be "shaken" to produce small ball-like particles on the surface of the fabric.
These particles are dense, soft, and resistant to falling off, and can be compounded with many fabrics.
The fleece series of products was so popular that Time magazine even selected fleece as one of the top 100 inventions of the 20th century.
However, due to the monopoly of fleece technology and production, and the high cost of importation, it remained a symbol of high-end fabrics for the first 20 years of its introduction.
What made it civilian was the Japanese fast-moving consumer goods brand Uniqlo.
In the late 1990s, UNIQLO was entering the fashion-loving Tokyo market and needed a "stepping stone".
After comprehensive consideration, Uniqlo chose a fleece sweater that has already become popular in Europe and the United States.
At that time, it had already represented the fleece sweater imported from the United States, but the price was "unaffordable".
So Uniqlo decided to build its own fleece and reduce the cost and price of fleece.
In November 1998, UNIQLO Tokyo Harajuku opened its main fleece sweater for 1,900 yen, equivalent to 116 yuan.
Seeing that the fleece, which is a "high-end product" in the United States, hit the "fracture price", the people of Tokyo set off a rush to buy and lined up in front of the store.
With the carpet promotion of "1,900 yen a dress", the fleece sweater created an annual sales miracle of 26 million pieces that year.
So the question is: people are "really fragrant" for fleece, just because it's cheap?
"Plain" shake fleece, where is the fragrance?
As we all know, there is no fashion in winter in the north.
Every young person who is frozen in the cold wind to "doubt life" has learned to consciously put on autumn pants before his mother urges him.
When shopping for winter clothes, the warmth of the clothes is also put first.
The data shows that under the same temperature conditions, the warmth of fleece is 2 times that of wool and 4 times that of cotton.
At the same time, the unique texture of the fleece will not be troubled by pilling, and it also avoids the shortcomings of wool absorbing water and not easy to dry.
This means you don't have to send a fleece sweater to a dry cleaner like you would for a wool coat.
With its warmth, comfort and well-care properties, fleece gives people a casual and languid feeling.
As early as 2000, Takuya Kimura wore a fleece jacket and appeared in the Japanese drama "Beautiful Life".
Source: "Beautiful Life"
With the rise of "slack", a new wave in the fashion industry, people have begun to see this soft fabric as synonymous with "lazy fashion".
In addition to FMCG brands, sports brands such as The North Face, Nike, and Adidas have also entered the fleece.
Light luxury brands such as Kenzo and Maxmara have also fallen in love with this material, launching trendy and patterned fleece pieces.
It can be said that the fleece, like the down jacket, is completing the reversal from fashion insulators to trendy items.
If someone says that wearing fleece is dirty, then the probability is that he himself did not catch up with the trend.
In recent years, many Japanese dramas have also appeared in the figure of fleece.
The explosion of fleece is an indisputable fact -
Whether it's ugly or fashionable, even the most basic style, there is never a shortage of fleece.
After all, in the cold winter, it is difficult to say "no" to a piece of clothing that is only two or three hundred, but soft and warm.
[1] Yang Zhicheng, Editorial Department. The wind of corduroy and fleece is making a comeback[J].Art and Design,2021,1(03):112-115.)
[2] ZHENG Huixin. After 28 years of selling, Uniqlo fleece clothes are "new"[N].Economic Observer,2022-11-07(019). DOI:10.28421/n.cnki.njjgc.2022.001770.
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