With the awakening of global consumer awareness, more and more brands are beginning to follow this trend. The parent company of luxury brand Gucci, Kering, earlier released the 2025 plan with sustainable development as its foothold, the world’s largest luxury brand Louis Vuitton The parent company LVMH is also carrying out sustainable development research with Central Saint Martins and other institutions, and signing relevant commitment agreements on energy conservation and emission reduction in the group. Fast fashion brands represented by H&M have begun to participate in the development of sustainable development by recycling used clothes and releasing environmentally friendly series. Continuous fashion practice.
In the past 20 years, China's role in the global fashion industry has completed a gradual transition from productivity to consumption power. In the beginning, China used cheap labor and low cost to attract apparel manufacturing to move to the southeast coast. After the demographic dividend period, China changed from a major apparel manufacturing country to a key market with strong consumer power. At present, the consumption of Chinese consumers accounts for one-third of the sales of the global luxury goods market. With the development of China’s economy, Chinese consumers consume nearly 46% of the world’s luxury goods, of which overseas consumption dominates, accounting for approximately Is 77%.
The mainstream view in China believes that the Chinese apparel market is still in a period of consumerism, and consumers have a strong willingness to consume, but their consumption consciousness is not mature enough. Since sustainable fashion is considered to be a manifestation of "anti-consumerism" to a certain extent, it is still too early to promote sustainable fashion. Not only that, from the perspective of production, many domestic apparel brands are still in the extensive management stage, and the requirements for sustainable development are beyond their capabilities. In the Chinese market, it may be brands, not consumers, who are not prepared for sustainable fashion.
The 2018 Copenhagen Fashion Summit, which just closed on May 16, seems to herald some changes for China. (The Copenhagen Fashion Summit is known as the "Fashion Davos Forum". It mainly invites major decision makers and opinion leaders in the global fashion industry to discuss environmental, social and ethical issues related to fashion. Arouse the attention of more and more brands.)
The three major domestic apparel groups-Esquel, Erdos, and Jiangnan Buyi represent domestic apparel brands on the international discussion platform for sustainable fashion for the first time. This, to a certain extent, means that domestic apparel brands have germinated and become aware of sustainable fashion. Made preliminary practice. These three domestic apparel groups represent three different types of apparel brand operation modes in the Chinese market.
Esquel Group: As one of the largest manufacturers of high-end cotton shirts in China, it has factories in China, Malaysia, Vietnam, Mauritius and Sri Lanka. It supplies shirts for high-end brands such as Hugo Boss and Tommy Hilfiger. It also owns PYE and ten Private brands such as Rushi, whose business scope extends from cotton planting to the entire industrial chain of spinning, weaving, dyeing and finishing, garment making, export and retail, are typical representatives of the current supply chain of China's apparel industry.
The sustainable fashion practices of the Esquel Group are basically consistent with the current international world’s main expectations of large manufacturers. Although less affected by the Chinese market, it combines labor rights and interests in addition to the current Chinese society’s single understanding of sustainable fashion. important aspects are placed in a more prominent position. In addition to the production process, the new brand Shirushi under the Esquel Group focuses on producing white shirts of different personalized sizes, focusing on anti-blind trends and classic styles of excessive consumption.
Ordos Group: A 30-year-old cashmere brand well known in China, Ordos is also a traditional cashmere vertical industry chain group from pastures, sheep breeds, cashmere collection, and finally to clothing. It currently has 4 brands targeting different customer segments, ERDOS , Ordos 1980, 1436 and BLUE ERDOS.
Ordos hopes to ensure the ecological environment of the grassland, by optimizing the vertical supply chain, strengthening product tracking and forecasting, and controlling inventory more accurately to reduce resource idleness and waste. In addition to the commercial dimension, Erdos, as the main quality national brand, is also trying to enhance product sustainability by emphasizing product durability and emotional value, such as providing product recycling and repair services in stores.
Jiangnan Buyi Group: Established in Hangzhou in 1997, it mainly owns 5 apparel brands, including women's JNBY, men's CROQUIS sketch, children's jnby by JNBY and Pomme de terre, and high-end women's less. The group also extended its tentacles to the home furnishing field and established successively Two home furnishing brands, JNBY HOME and Paradox Collection.
It is reported that Jiangnan Buyi announced the launch of a new fashion and environmentally friendly brand REVERB on June 19, with a zero-waste fashion (Circular fashion) as the brand philosophy and upholding the design concept of "Athleisure, genderless, regeneration and agility". In line with the Group's strategy of multi-brand expansion, and through the diversification of brand and category portfolio to expand horizontally. Some believe that the launch of the REVERB brand by Jiangnan Buyi this time is a practice of sustainable fashion, and it also represents the current demand for a new batch of domestic commercial brands. And Jiangnan Buyi chose to launch REVERB at the moment when the topic of sustainable fashion is the most concerned. It also has its own considerations.
Robby Gu, Vice President of Investment and Innovation of Jiangnan Buyi Group, said at the Copenhagen Fashion Summit that Jiangnan Buyi's emphasis on sustainable fashion is not solely based on ethical requirements, but commercial needs. From another perspective, Jiangnan Buyi's interpretation of sustainable fashion is to return to the product, that is, to polish the product to be more unique and attractive. The higher-priced environmentally friendly fabrics have opened a gap with other products in terms of quality, which also guarantees the uniqueness of the brand.
In addition to the above three brands, the Edition of the EPO Group, the parent company of MO&Co., specifically proposes the exploration of sustainable fashion in its latest series. The series extracts commercial reflections from Eastern philosophies, including concerns about sustainability, opposition to overproduction, and practicality. The brand stated that it will continue to pay attention to and effectively participate in global focus issues such as eco-environmental protection and women's rights, and cooperate with multiple international sustainable development organizations.
Founded in 1997, ICICLE has been committed to becoming a representative high-end environmental protection brand in China in recent years, mainly providing middle-class women with high-quality and easy-to-care pure natural commuter clothing. It is worth noting that ICICLE also has the first environmentally friendly baby clothing brand ECO BABE in China.
In addition, with the further popularization of the Internet and changes in the consumption habits of young people, the Chinese market has also appeared in the Chinese market, the main sustainable business model of the rental wardrobe APP Yi Er San, the emergence of Yi Er San can not only provide more clothing styles, but also It is a fashionable and environmentally friendly lifestyle.
In general, Chinese companies are still lagging behind in terms of sustainable fashion product innovation, so more and more third-party organizations have emerged, hoping to help their development from the perspective of communication and channel distribution. Last year, Kering Group and Shanghai Fashion Week reached a cooperation. The former opened the Kering Innovative Luxury Lab during Shanghai Fashion Week and released the WeChat applet of My EP&L, an environmental profit and loss calculation tool.
Obviously, whether it is from the perspective of production, consumption or communication, China's sustainable fashion has already started. once people have opened up the bridge between sustainable fashion and business logic, this concept may be a new opportunity for domestic apparel brands. . Especially in the current economically active Chinese market, what sustainable fashion lacks is not mature market conditions, but innovative business models and truly attractive products.