The enterprise is small but beautiful, and the industry is getting stronger——Survey on swimwear industry in Xingcheng City, Liaoning
Xingcheng City, Liaoning Province, is as famous as Jinjiang, Fujian and Yiwu, Zhejiang, and is one of the three major swimwear production bases in China. For every 4 swimsuits sold in the world, 1 may come from here. However, Xingcheng’s swimwear companies are also facing the trouble of insufficient development potential – insufficient independent research and development innovation capabilities, low brand recognition, lack of professionaltalent… Faced with these Development bottleneck, what should Xingcheng Swimwear do?
As of the end of 2021, there are 4,828 registered market entities in the swimwear industry, with an average annual output of 170 million pieces (sets) and more than 60,000 employees; products are exported to more than 140 countries and regions, accounting for more than 25% of the international market share. Accounting for nearly 40% of the domestic market; there are more than 30,000 online stores, and annual online sales reach 4 billion yuan… These dazzling figures all belong to a small northeastern city – Xingcheng City, Liaoning Province. Each piece of swimwear comes in various forms in the hands of Xingcheng people, but the development of Xingcheng’s swimwear industry has not been smooth sailing.
Strengthen independent innovation capabilities
Liu Chunyu, general manager of Hengyi Garment Co., Ltd., has been engaged in the swimwear business since the late 1980s. “At that time, they were all small workshops, and most of them used pedalsewing machines to make swimsuits. I often took the green train with a big bag on my back to sell swimsuits in Beidaihe and Dalian. No one would have thought , we used pedal sewing machines to create a world-class industry for Xingcheng.”
Today, Liu Chunyu spends more time going to well-known foreign fashion shows to select patterns and design patterns for his own company.
“Most of our swimwear companies do not have the ability to design patterns independently, and they mainly go to France, Italy and other European countries to purchase patterns.” Liu Chunyu said frankly that many swimwear companies lack independent design and research and development capabilities, making it difficult to design differentiated and original designs. products, and overall independent innovation capabilities need to be strengthened.
“Some companies have even committed plagiarism.” According to Sun Kaibin, general manager of Sanqi Garment Co., Ltd., in terms of swimwear patterns, copyright protection for innovative designs needs to be strengthened.
In the sewing workshop of Starway Swimwear Super Industrial Park in Xingcheng City, workers are rushing to produce order products. “In recent years, we have worked hard to make up for our shortcomings in pattern innovation and research and development by inviting external designers, but we still lack innovation in research and development of new fabrics.” Zhang Dongyuan, chairman of Xingcheng Starway Group, said that Xingcheng Production The swimwear fabrics are mainly traditional polyester and nylon, which are mainly purchased from southern provinces.
“Swimwear, as a close-fitting sportswear, has high requirements for fabric comfort and safety. Due to the lack of surface and auxiliary material resources, Xingcheng has not invested enough in innovative research and development of fabrics, and the pace of innovation of new fabrics is slow. The color fastness of fabrics The strength, flatness, tensile strength and functionality all need to be improved,” Zhang Dongyuan said.
Why does Xingcheng Swimwear have shortcomings in innovation and research and development? Yu Shuqin, honorary president of the Xingcheng Swimwear Industry Association, said that Xingcheng’s swimwear companies are mostly small, medium and micro enterprises with insufficient innovation power and capabilities. Innovation requires a lot of investment, and many companies are reluctant to carry out independent innovation to avoid risks. Swimwear production is a labor-intensive industry. Due to the lack of independent R&D and innovation, some swimwear companies have even become OEM factories.
Innovation is the soul of enterprise development. Only by improving originality can an enterprise develop rapidly. Xingcheng Swimwear wants to solve the problem of weak independent innovation capabilities. On the one hand, it must change its concept and emphasize originality; on the other hand, it must integrate industry and education for coordinated development.
In the digital age, digitalization and technological transformation and upgrading of the fashion industry are imperative. Hou Lingling, head of the women’s wear direction at Dalian University of Technology’s Fashion Institute, suggested that traditional swimwear companies should quickly change their concepts to adapt to the iterative demands for swimwear products in the new era. In order to accelerate the transformation of Xingcheng swimwear industry to digitalization and intelligentization, especially to promote the foundation of corporate swimwear R&D and designintellectual property rights To build, support and protect enterprises’ original designs, we need to advocate originality and respect design, and use digital technology to present virtual swimwear and fashion concepts to show the style of the fashion industry.
Xingcheng swimwear companies also need to give full play to the role of colleges and universities and form a collaborative innovation mechanism that links government, industry, academia and research. “While carrying out targeted research on cutting-edge technologies, we also provide technical services in structural processes and product design, improve the core competitiveness of independent research and development of enterprises, and achieve design innovation, technological innovation and concept innovation; grasp the characteristics of the discipline and rely on the educational resources of universities advantages to support the development of the swimwear industry.” Hou Lingling said.
Faced with bottlenecks, Xingcheng is working hard to make up for the shortcomings. At present, Xingcheng Swimwear has formed three major professional bases: R&D, operation and production. Among them, the R&D base cooperated with Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology to create the Beifu Industrial Park; the operation base cooperated with Alibaba to create the 1688 Strength Industrial Park and 1688 Cross-bordere-commerce transactions Center; the production base is led by Starway and Yinghua, driving the development of other companies.�� It is difficult to retain; secondly, there is a shortage of labor force; thirdly, there is a gap in the succession of older generation entrepreneurs. The lack of professional and technical talents, especially senior R&D talents and management talents, is mainly due to the lack of comprehensive competitiveness of Xingcheng city, the small scale of leading swimwear companies, few well-known brands, and insufficient attraction to talents. The local labor force in Xingcheng is aging, the introduction of foreign labor is insufficient, the problem of aging employees in enterprises is prominent, and there are few migrant workers. In addition, the older generation of swimwear entrepreneurs have slightly insufficient business motivation and weak awareness of modern management. There is an urgent need to train successors. However, some of the next generation of successors lack the willingness, and some are still young. In the future, the “top leaders” of Xingcheng swimwear companies There will be gaps during shift handovers.
How to find a breakthrough point in view of the many problems existing in industrial employment?
On the one hand, industrial development requires a high-quality talent reserve. Hou Lingling believes that the upgrading and development of the swimwear industry requires high-end management talents, design talents, professional and technical talents and skilled industrial workers. The government, universities, and industries should work together to create a sustainable talent training model, give full play to the advantages of universities, cultivate all-round talents for enterprises, and improve the overall quality of personnel.
On the other hand, attract talents by increasing visibility and influence. “Leverage the influence of the Xingcheng International Swimwear Exhibition, hold swimsuit design competitions and related supporting activities, and use this as a carrier to select outstanding fashion design talents and sign cooperation agreements. Encourage international emerging designers, national outstanding fashion designers, Liaoning The top ten pattern makers in the province have settled in Xingcheng to establish swimwear design studios to improve product quality and create new swimwear fashions,” Hou Lingling said. (Reporter Wen Jicong)
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