Puff-sleeved cheongsam, button-down denim jacket, suspender pants with Tang back, horse-faced skirt with knitted sweater, suspender shorts over long shirt...... Recently, the "new Chinese" design and "new Chinese" clothing have become popular among young people, and they have been jokingly called "the awakening of the bloodline" by netizens.
In fact, the "new Chinese" clothing has not yet formed a unified standard, broadly speaking, the integration of traditional Chinese elements and modern fashion design can be regarded as "new Chinese". From topics such as "why do young people like 'new Chinese style'" on social platforms, to the beautiful scenery of "new Chinese style" passing by in scenic spots and subways, to the "explosive orders" of online store sales and the oriental elements that can be seen everywhere in Shenzhen's local shopping malls and clothing markets, all show that this national style has blown into daily life.
▲Tourists wear horse-faced skirts to visit the ancient town of Gankeng, and the classical style complements the scenery of the ancient town.
For work and travel, the "new Chinese style" is versatile
Ms. Yu of Shenzhen first noticed the "new Chinese" costumes last year, and a group of film and television actors such as Yang Mi and Ni Ni attended the event and wore the "new Chinese", which caused many people to follow suit. After seeing more, Ms. Yu also had an interest in trying, but she didn't expect to get unanimous praise from her friends when she wore the "new Chinese style", "It is very temperamental, and it even looks very expensive." Ms. Yu said that the "new Chinese style" is very versatile, not only usually dressed appropriately for work, but also suitable for attending events or going out to play, and she has gradually fallen in love with the "new Chinese style".
Initially, Ms. Yu would buy "new Chinese" clothing through an online store, but found that the quality was uneven, so she switched to the famous local Nanyou clothing wholesale market. She said that although the price in the physical store is higher, she can better see the design details, and touching the fabric of the clothing makes it easier for her to trigger her desire to buy. From looking at the style to the heavy fabric, Ms. Yu has added a lot of "new Chinese" pants, skirts, vests, etc., and even in order to match it more harmoniously and beautifully, she also bought some Chinese-style bags, headwear, etc. Last year, Ms. Yu learned about Xiangyun Yarn because she watched Shenzhen's original dance drama "Wing Chun", and when she was on a business trip in Shunde, she went to visit Xiangyun Yarn clothing store and bought a top.
Ms. Yu's husband, Mr. Chen, also likes "new Chinese style". Because of his profession, he used to wear some Chinese clothes such as Mao suits in the workplace, which would give people a sense of maturity and stability. After the recent popularity of "new Chinese style", Mr. Chen has also noticed that Chinese menswear design is becoming more and more trendy, and he is now buying "new Chinese" clothing in a variety of colors, mainly shirts. This makes him willing to wear it on the occasion of private friends gatherings, which is both fashionable and not deliberate. However, Mr. Chen also has a regret, that is, whether online or offline, there are many fewer clothing stores selling men's "new Chinese style" than women's clothing, and it is not as easy to buy as his wife. "I think for men, don't define 'new Chinese style' as only middle-aged and elderly people can wear it, in fact, young people can also wear this 'new Chinese style' trendy style."
▲ Men wearing "new Chinese style".
Miss Fang, a citizen, has always liked traditional Chinese elements, and has also bought Hanfu, she said, Hanfu is worn during the New Year and festivals, and it is also particularly "out of the picture" to take pictures when going out to play, but as an office worker, she always feels too abrupt to wear it to the office, and the skirt that is usually too long is not convenient for her as a migrant worker to run around in the subway and stairwell. The "new Chinese" design just perfectly solves the problem - it not only meets the actual wearing needs of urban people, but also shows the charm of traditional culture. She has bought short horse-faced skirts, cheongsams with puff sleeve A-line skirts, camisole tops with buckles, and so on. At the same time, she will also search for "new Chinese" collocations on the Internet, learn how to use some traditional Hanfu with modern clothes, and accidentally "unlock" her new ways of wearing Hanfu that were originally going to press the bottom of the box. As of 2023, the topic of "New Chinese Wear" has been viewed more than 2.1 billion times on the Xiaohongshu platform, and the number of related notes has exceeded 3 million.
During the Peony Cultural Festival in Luoyang, Henan Province in April this year, when Ms. Fang went on a trip, almost all of her suitcases were Hanfu and "new Chinese" clothing. She said that wearing a "new Chinese style" to shuttle through the high-rise jungle of Shenzhen will have a very fashionable sense of modernity, and walking on the streets of the ancient capital of Luoyang, a graceful temperament will emerge. "'New Chinese style' is to give me a sense of beauty that can bloom anywhere, maybe I have cultural confidence, and I am confident when I wear it." Miss Fang said with a smile.
"New Chinese style" is popular online and offline
"China has great etiquette, so it is called Xia; There is the beauty of uniforms, which is called Hua. This is one of the sources of the word "Huaxia". The "New Chinese Style" clothing skillfully integrates traditional Chinese embroidery, buckles, prints and other elements, igniting consumers' sense of identity and pride in traditional culture. According to the 2023 China Brand Development Trend Report, from 2019 to 2022, the number of Chinese consumers buying domestic products and Guochao-related products increased by 74%, and the transaction value increased by 355%. According to data from the China National Textile and Apparel Council, the scale of the "new Chinese" clothing market will reach 1 billion yuan in 2023, and the total transaction volume of related commodities has increased by more than 100% in the past three years.
A reporter from Jingbao opened Taobao to search for "new Chinese clothing" and saw a rich variety of styles, not only dresses, shirts, etc. for daily commuting, but also "new Chinese" pajamas are also sought after by netizens. The best-selling styles on the platform have sales ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand, with one disc button-down shirt having more than 6,000 sales and more than 2,000 reviews. As early as 2022, "New Chinese Style" has been listed in the TOP3 of the nine trends in the "Taobao Tmall Apparel Industry Trend White Paper". According to the data of the "Tmall Life Research Institute" in March 2023, the turnover of new Chinese style increased by 50%+ year-on-year, and the market size reached 1 billion. The six core trends of 2024 spring and summer released by the "Taobao 2024 Spring and Summer Apparel Industry Trend White Paper", "cold and fresh Chinese style" still occupy a place. The white paper pointed out that the "cold and fresh Chinese" style goods in the Tmall apparel industry increased by more than 2 times year-on-year, and consumer demand and commodity supply drove the expansion of sales scale at the same time, with a year-on-year increase of more than 1 times. The top three style scenes are light business, tea brewing around the stove and national style photography.
On other online platforms, the sales of "new Chinese" clothing have also achieved brilliant results. According to the "2024 Douyin E-commerce Women's Consumption Trend Data Report", in 2023, the number of orders for women to buy "new Chinese clothing" on the Douyin platform will increase by 195% year-on-year; Among them, the order volume of horse face skirts increased by 841% year-on-year. This year's Spring Festival Gala program "New Year's Brocade" integrates the beauty of traditional Chinese patterns into singing and dancing, and the live broadcast began, and the turnover of Jingdong's "new Chinese" clothing increased by 215% year-on-year.
There is such a saying in the clothing industry: "Chinese women's clothing looks at Shenzhen, and Shenzhen women's clothing looks at Nanyou". Nanyou has about 3,000 garment enterprises and more than 7,000 shops, including more than 1,000 independent original brands. Many designer brands continue to appear in international fashion weeks, attracting a large number of agents and professional buyers from all over the world every year, with annual sales of more than 70 billion yuan.
The reporter visited the Nanyou clothing wholesale market and found that about sixty percent of the stalls sold "new Chinese" clothing. Previously, Yin Yali, supervisor of Guangdong Shenzhen Nanyou Lixiu Fashion Industry Association, said in an interview with the media that since last year, more and more merchants in the Nanyou market have begun to do "new Chinese style", and now almost 70% to 80% of merchants have tried to enter the "new Chinese" track.
A shopkeeper said that the "new Chinese" explosion began last year, and the stalls were overcrowded, and many foreign merchants would come here to buy goods, and the monthly turnover could be as high as several million. Some businesses at the same time try to live broadcast sales "new Chinese", a merchant said, at the beginning of a single live broadcast may be from tens of thousands of yuan to more than 100,000 yuan in sales, now can stabilize to a single sales of more than 400,000 yuan, good may have 1 million yuan in sales.
In addition, the reporter also visited some shopping malls in the city and saw that many brands in the women's clothing area have also launched "new Chinese" designs, and they are all hung in eye-catching positions such as shop windows.
The international style of "new Chinese style".
As the first city in China to be awarded the title of "City of Design" by the UNESCO Creative Cities Network, Shenzhen has become one of the most developed cities in China's fashion industry, with more than 2,500 existing apparel brand enterprises in Shenzhen as of 2023, of which more than 90% are independent brands, with a market share of more than 60% in first-tier shopping malls in large and medium-sized cities across the country, and a total annual sales of nearly 270 billion yuan, accounting for 10% of the country.
Chen Li is one of the many talented designers in the fertile soil of innovation in young Shenzhen. As the founder and creative director of the Roundtable brand, Chen Li is a cutting-edge figure with a unique temperament, and among the many styles of clothing she designs, there is no shortage of "new Chinese" styles.
On May 9, the reporter walked into the roundtable exhibition hall in Wanrong Building, Shekou, and saw rows of "new Chinese" clothing on display, which not only integrated tradition and modernity, but also showed great imagination and action in fabric materials. In addition, Chen Li also has a collection of old embroidery pieces, which she has collected all over the world over the years. Chen Li combined the collected old embroidery pieces with fashion and modern home design methods to make a variety of "new Chinese" style fashion and household items, presenting the ancient art again with the attitude of fashion pioneers.
Talking about the design concept of "new Chinese" clothing, Chen Li said: "I hope it can be internationalized, or formed through the combination of international elements and Chinese elements, not only expressed in the collar button, Chinese culture has a lot of content, craftsmanship, and fabrics can be expressed." Chen Li hopes that the "new Chinese" clothing she designed can be in line with international standards on the basis of classics and lead the "new Chinese" to go abroad.
Chen Li showed reporters several "new Chinese" clothes she designed, one of which was a re-creation of a black dress by Japanese designer Yohji Yamamoto, and cleverly integrated an old embroidery piece embroidered with a dragon. Chen Li introduced: "There are many kinds of art, some people are appreciative, some people are their own creation, some people enjoy, Yamamoto's design style emphasizes individuality and uniqueness, I will collect many years of old embroidery pieces and this personality of the dress, so that it has a different taste." ”
After speaking, Chen Li took the reporter to enjoy another "new Chinese style" with a full sense of story. "It looks like it's embroidered, but it's actually printed, and this embroidery comes from a Swiss company that can be called a leader in the clothing industry, and the world's annual fashion trends are produced from this company," she said. These flowers are embroidered by machine, and its machine has reached the state of hand-embroidery like our Suzhou embroidery. I embroidered it on my clothes in the hope that more female friends can enjoy a different international Chinese design. The reporter saw that in addition to embroidery, Chen Li also embroidered her brand image, presenting a combination of modern and traditional taste. I hope that through this dress, women do not need to limit themselves to a certain type of clothing or a certain kind of personality, you will discover a new self through wearing clothes. The silhouette of this dress I designed to feel like a student dress during the Republic of China, which is very loose, so that you can wear it in line with the modern trend of relaxation, and at the same time add embroidery elements to let the 'old money style' also integrate into it. ”
▲Designer Chen Li introduced the design concept of "new Chinese" clothing.
At present, the "new Chinese" clothing represented by Xiangyun yarn has set off a new fashion at home and abroad. Chen Li took out a piece of Xiangyun yarn that she was very satisfied with and introduced, "At present, I haven't seen any cheongsam that can be worn on both sides. "It turned out that the back of this Xiangyun gauze cheongsam was tie-dyed, and when it was worn on the back, it showed another taste. Talking about the design inspiration, Chen Li said: "I think it's so beautiful that I don't want to give up on either side, so I decided to break through myself and make it a state where both sides can be shown." ”
Chen Li has been involved in the field long before the popularity of "new Chinese style", and she said that although everyone is very enthusiastic about "new Chinese style", she does not want to wear it with the same feeling. "I want to give women a more powerful impact, a piece of clothing that can stay in your closet for a lifetime, rather than being thrown away when it goes out of style. Good things must be classics that don't go out of style. Chen Li admitted frankly that she would not follow the trend because of making money. If I were to make a soulless garment that I couldn't fit into my passion, then the garment wouldn't be worth it. She advises everyone to be cautious when the "new Chinese" fashion trend is particularly strong, and to choose the best parts of the collection. If you wear the same style, it's easy to lose your individuality. Among Chen Li's customer base, the age of purchasing "new Chinese style" is basically between 35 and 55 years old.
When it comes to the current popularity of the "new Chinese" market, Chen Li bluntly said that what I heard the most during this period of time is that the "new Chinese" people who made money years ago are making money, but since this year, sales have been declining, and many merchants are pressing goods. The reason for this, Chen Li said: "There are too many, and the quality is uneven. I hope that my design will allow people to wear the 'new Chinese style' in an international style." ”
Source│Jingbao APP
Reporter: Zhang Yuchun, Lin Fei
Photography: Zhang Yuchun, Lin Fei/Photo (Some pictures provided by the interviewee)
Editor: Li Huifang