There Are 2473 Hanfu Enterprises, 14416 Online Stores And Nearly 100000 Practitioners In Caoxian County

"I want to endow it with culture, not the brand culture, but more the 5000 year culture of China carried by the brand culture."

For every two Han suits sold nationwide, one comes from here.

There are 2473 Hanfu enterprises, 14416 online stores and nearly 100000 practitioners.

Last year, the sales of Hanfu here reached 7.215 billion yuan.

The online sales of Hanfu from January to April this year reached 2.47 billion yuan, including 1.073 billion yuan for the horse face skirt.

　　……

Here is Caoxian County, which is located in Heze City, Shandong Province.

If you walk on the street of fabric accessories in Caoxian Daji Town empty handed, a Han suit can be made completely within 5 kilometers. It takes 10 minutes to get on the expressway and 40 minutes to get to the airport. The production cost of Caoxian Hanfu is low, the output is large, the style is diverse, and the cluster development, so some people say that Caoxian is the source of the first Hanfu for young people, and some people say that Caoxian makes every Chinese people can afford to wear Hanfu.

Thousands of years of civilization, China's rise, traditional culture craze, cultural self-confidence, the young generation and other words that were originally grand and magnificent have fallen on the sewing machines in many villages of this county since the end of last year. A stitch, ups and downs, a horse dress will have a dragon dance phoenix, beautiful rivers and mountains. It is said that during the Spring Festival this year, 8 out of every 10 horse face skirts in China came from here. Smoky sewing machines made the "Cosmic Center" come out again.

The Spring and Autumn Zuo Zhuan Justice said: "China has great etiquette, so it is called Xia; there is the beauty of clothing, which is called Hua." Hanfu, also known as Huafu, after thousands of years of development and evolution, not only condenses the work of dyeing, weaving, and embroidery, but also carries the meaning of a nation of etiquette, national dress, and beautiful China. From the end of March to the beginning of April this year, Caoxian held the second Caoxian Hanfu Cultural Festival and 2024 Spring and Summer New Product Release Conference for a week to show the past achievements and release new spring and summer products that are more in line with the market and season. Revival, reproduction, re innovation, a piece of clothing, a period of history, a legend, the evolution of thousands of years of Han clothing is concentrated and folded in Caoxian like the pleats on the horse dress, and Caoxian continues to explore and improve with this period of history and culture, writing the spring and autumn of Han clothing in a county town.

　　 Caoxian produces whatever people want to wear

The scenery on the road to Daji Town is no different from many villages and towns in the north. It is ordinary and quiet, and even some roads and houses are a bit dilapidated. Only the occasional wind and roaring cars disturb the quiet road, making it dusty. However, as soon as we arrived at the town's fabric and accessories street, electric cars, tricycles, trucks and other vehicles came in and out. Signboards such as plate printing, printing, cloth, buttons and other signs were overwhelming. The window glass was covered with dust, but the store's various Han suits were dazzling. It seems that stores with no characteristics, such as a fabric store, have a flow of hundreds of millions of yuan a year.

Speaking of the Han costumes in Caoxian, we should start from the production of performance costumes. However, if we talk about the performance clothes of Cao County, we should start from the earlier photography clothes.

In the 1990s, more luxurious studios appeared in many counties and cities, and it became popular for people to take photos in an integrated way. Caoxian is the hometown of calligraphy and painting, so Caoxian people moved calligraphy and painting to the background cloth of the studio. When the background cloth is painted, some people think, what can the person standing in front of it wear to match this cloth? They are all handicrafts, so smart and skillful farmers sew some clothes for photos, combine them with the background cloth, and carry people to sell in the city.

The development of history is often accelerated by those who seize the opportunity.

In 2009, something happened in Dinglou Village, a big market town. Since then, Caoxian has been closely connected with a network cable, and this county has been surging forward in the wave of network.

That year, Ren Qingsheng of Dinglou Village mistakenly entered into a kind of masseuse business that was actually pyramid selling and lost thousands of yuan. At the same time, his wife Zhou Aihua was laid off at the cotton mill. The couple guarded three children, and there was three and a half acres of land that could not support children's schooling and family expenses.

The turnaround happened on a computer.

A friend of Zhou Aihua came back from visiting relatives and told her that she could sell things online at home to earn money. Zhou Aihua told her husband the news. Ren Qingsheng was stunned: "What, what is the net?"

At that time, the couple wanted to do some business, but they had to be careful. Zhou Aihua wants to take care of the children, thinking about "what to do at home", while Ren Qingsheng is afraid of pyramid schemes. "I firmly disagree with the idea of tinkering with computers. I'm afraid it's another way to cheat people. Playing computers and keyboards is for people with high culture or in cities. Do you think farmers can still play with computers?"

But life was really difficult, so the couple gritted their teeth and stamped their feet, spent 1500 yuan to pull a special line in the village without broadband access, and spent 1400 yuan to assemble a heavy computer in the second-hand market.

"I haven't seen it before, so I asked the teacher (dialect, master) who came to assemble it to teach me how to turn on the phone." From the start, registration, above figure, the couple used "One Finger Zen" to put the Zhongshan Suit for photography on the Internet.

A few months later, a "ding dong" from more than 1000 kilometers away burst in the ears of Ren Qingsheng and his wife along the network cable. The buyer from Humen, Guangdong asked them if they had any performance clothes. The couple were very excited. But they need to convert their own dialect into Mandarin, and then input Mandarin into the computer. In the long process, they not only need to use their daughter's first grade Chinese textbooks, but also think about whether they can produce clothes that buyers need. The other side of the computer was also worried, and asked directly: "You haven't opened a store, can't you type?" Then sent a picture, "Can you do this?"

"Yes!" The husband and wife replied very firmly with difficulty.

Then they kept looking for cloth, cutting and sewing in front of the picture. In those days, their sewing machine was really smoked by Zhou Aihua.

After 36 performance costumes were carried to the county seat and mailed away, they began to wait anxiously again. "Has the goods arrived yet? What if the buyer wants to return the goods? Where has the money gone? What is online banking?" With a bunch of question marks, Ren Qingsheng went to the bank every day to check. More than a week later, "more than 1000 yuan was' vacated 'into my card, and I knew it was done."

The money "vacated" is equal to the family's income from planting land for a year.

As a result, the experience of "It's better to go home to Taobao than to run around" spread all over Caoxian County from Dinglou Village. Soon, in the acquaintance society, the villagers emulated and drove each other. From plate making and printing, to cutting and sewing, to sales and logistics, a complete industrial chain was formed in the town.

With the industrial chain as the foundation and the market as the vane, we can say that Cao County can produce whatever people want to wear and what the market needs.

In the Hanfu Yuncang Base, which is called "Crossing the Tang Dynasty", the colorful costumes of all nationalities, all kinds of systems and all ages are shining. In the exhibition hall, people came to watch, buy and negotiate in an endless stream. While welcoming and seeing off, Liu Shenfeng, the person in charge, told the history of his clothing business. From his experience, the reason why Caoxian Han Costumes are out of business is not that Caoxian people happen to meet business opportunities, but that Caoxian people with market acumen adapt to the development of the times. The exhibition hall with an area of about 2300 square meters mainly displays Han style clothes. "If the market needs, it is possible that the next models will wear Tang style clothes."

　　 See also "the center of the universe"

"At night, people in other places may have a drink and play mahjong. We usually decorate online stores near computers or design products. Even when we watch TV dramas, we look not only at the plot, but also at the clothes worn by actors. We look at how to use our clothes in imitation," Ren Qingsheng said.

In the production of performance clothes, farmers in Caoxian County showed their super market acumen and entrepreneurial spirit. In addition, it is also inseparable from the development of e-commerce and government support. Professor Qiu Zeqi of the Department of Sociology of Peking University once made special research and analysis on the development of rural e-commerce in Heze City, taking Dinglou Village as an example. He believes that society, market and government are important forces that affect the rural order. Focusing on the "development" goal, different cognition and behavior of the three will shape different rural order. In Caoxian County, "the economic life, social life and political life of the village all work together, support and cooperate with each other around the goal of rural development, and form a rural order of economic prosperity, social order and political promising."

In the digital economy industrial park "eShang Town" built by Caoxian County, the reporter met Liu Xia, deputy director of Caoxian E-commerce Service Center. She said that the development of Caoxian County is a "one core and two wings" model, which is to focus on the core of farmers' entrepreneurship and make e-commerce platforms and government services its two wings.

Whether it is "three ranks to one" or "one core and two wings", one family drives one village and one village drives one town. By 2017, Daji Town has become the largest children's performance clothing processing and sales base in China.

Before 2019, Hanfu was only one of the various performance costumes produced in Caoxian County. Due to the epidemic situation, offline performances have decreased sharply, and at the same time, the national trend has risen, some businesses have tried to produce a large number of Han suits. At the beginning of 2020, in order to fight the epidemic and resume work, many county heads across the country will carry goods for the live broadcast of local specialties. Liang Huimin, then deputy secretary of the CPC Caoxian County Committee and head of the county, put on Hanfu in the broadcast room, telling everyone about the styles of Hanfu in different periods, and also introducing the characteristics and production technology of the Hanfu in Caoxian: "The Hanfu in Caoxian is your best choice, which inherits the ancient simplicity of the Han Dynasty, the elegance of the Tang Dynasty, the elegance of the Song Dynasty, and the dignity of the Ming Dynasty!"

In the network tide, the flow is more like an immeasurable wave, and its size and power sometimes exceed imagination.

Shortly after the county head brought the goods, an online celebrity in Caoxian called "666 My Baby in Caoxian, Heze, Shandong" in a short video. The brainwashing effect was strong, which triggered imitation and discussion. The topic related to Caoxian began to explode. Caoxian has brought online carnival because of its online popularity, and its strong family background, such as Han suits and coffins exported to Japan, has impressed everyone. "Better have a bed in Caoxian than a suite in Shanghai", "Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Caoxian", Caoxian not only "redefines the ranking of China's top tier cities" in the hot spot, but also "redefines" the scope of its "redefinition", which is even called "the center of the universe".

It started last year when people realized that they really wore them. Last year, the cultural and tourism market heated up rapidly. In addition to the revival of traditional culture, it was also the "Hanfu Movement" launched by young people for 20 years. Tourists wearing Hanfu and hairpin flowers can be seen everywhere in famous scenic spots, which makes the Hanfu industry in Caoxian develop rapidly. In particular, during the Spring Festival this year, the horse face skirt became the "battle robe" of countless ladies and sisters.

The horse dress exploded, and the orders urged the factory of Luoruyan Hanfu brand to step up production like a whip. Yao Chixing, the general manager, recalled: "More than 100 workers were far from enough. At the peak of the year ago, there was a turnover of more than 100000 yuan a day online. It was planned to prepare goods before the Spring Festival, but the cloth had been finished before the 29th of December."

If we can say that three years ago, the hot spot of the "Cosmic Center" made us know the Han suit of Caoxian County, then this time, it was the Han suit's appearance that made us see the "Cosmic Center" again.

　　 "Revival, replication, and then what?"

When history moves forward slowly, it will experience the montage like technique inadvertently, being edited, spliced and compressed, crossing thousands of years, and meeting at a certain moment. When the pace of history has gone through a long enough time, looking back, this experience has also become its footprint. In a long, short, fast and slow way, history has new content that it can tell.

The history of Han clothing is very long. In a narrow sense, it refers to the clothing system formed by the Han nationality from "the Yellow Emperor, Yao and Shun wear clothes and govern the world" to the end of the Ming Dynasty and the beginning of the Qing Dynasty. The Han costumes produced in Cao County have already exceeded the boundaries of national costumes, and are racing with thousands of years of Han costume history and time.

When chatting with reporters, Zhou Aihua and the workers in the factory were busy in the warehouse. One time a large bag of clothes was sent away, and another was carried to the shelf.

However, the huge market demand also exposed the problems that the cloth can not be self produced and the production capacity can not keep up with in the production process of Caoxian Hanfu.

On the second floor of the party masses service building of rural e-commerce in Daji Town, manager Yang Wei is cutting with workers. When he saw us coming, he stopped his work. "Fire has its own troubles. The cloth in Zhejiang is also in short supply, so we have to queue up. We can only go directly to the factory and say that I will not arrange your cloth, and I will directly contract how many machines you have." In addition to grabbing the cloth, Yang Wei will also reduce the time and shorten the construction period in all aspects. "It's troublesome for remote and designers to change their manuscripts over and over again, and it takes time for them to be ready to wear in my hands. Our local industrial chain is relatively complete, but not all can be solved in one place. In addition, under such a large market demand, all links have to queue up. So this year, I want to make the whole industrial chain, and without leaving the factory, I can produce a complete garment. ”

Luoruyan Hanfu Brand Factory is the leading enterprise in the production of Hanfu in Caoxian County. At present, the factory has used Caos flexible intelligent production line. This is the first digital production line specialized in the production of hanfu in China, which can almost double the output of hanfu.

However, in this time chase, although Yao Chixing also focuses on production, she values quality more. "When the rich and noble come here, they can touch things with a basin, but I want to be a benchmark."

Before a large number of Hanfu produced in Caoxian County entered the market, the price of Hanfu was very high JK uniforms are collectively called the "three sisters in bankruptcy" by the public. The production of Han costumes in Caoxian County was originally transferred from the production of performance costumes, which were often used less frequently, resulting in poor quality, low price and large output. At first, Caoxian Hanfu made use of this advantage to take the route of "surrounding the city from the countryside", so that people could wear Hanfu for one or two hundred yuan or even dozens of yuan, quickly occupying the low-end market. Located in the exhibition hall of "Youaiyuncang", the largest Hanfu production live broadcast base in Caoxian County, the slogan "Everyone should have a horse dress in their wardrobe" was written.

However, the problems of low quality, mutual replication, lack of originality and other problems in the production of Han costumes in Caoxian County have become a problem in front of the production of Han costumes in Caoxian County.

Before 2021, Yao Chixing did not produce hanfu, she only did live broadcast. Her wife is the president of Caoxian E-Commerce Live Broadcasting Association, and they jointly help and drive many people to participate in live broadcasting. During the interview, the anchors in the base were showing various horse face skirts on the mobile phone screens of countless people in live broadcast rooms. At that time, when Yao Chixing was making a live broadcast, he felt the sense of responsibility that he had to devote himself to production. "How could some clothes be made so badly? They didn't listen to the manufacturers, and they thought it would be good if they had something to give me." At that time, Yao Chixing also heard all kinds of voices about the low quality and plagiarism of Cao County's Han suits, which made her and her lover decide to make the quality and brand of Cao County's Han suits.

Chen Long, a designer familiar with the history of clothing, analyzed the development stage of Cao County's Han clothing according to the development process of many clothing. "It is now a period of cultural renaissance. In the renaissance, people will continue to copy. Revival, copy, and then? After the climax of renaissance has passed, it is time to innovate." In his opinion, the fire of horse dress is from the clothing itself, It is because the horse face skirt conforms to the law of the modernization of traditional clothing. Following this law, many innovations can be made. Chen Long is a native of Tai'an, Shandong Province. He is currently working with his hometown's Culture and Tourism Bureau and universities to make Mount Tai, the only mountain in the Five Mountains, into a horse dress

Yang Wei is currently working on the whole industry chain, but he has always been thinking about the improvement and development of the horse dress. "It's not as simple as adding buckles and riding a vest. I think it's more complicated. For example, Ru skirt used to be tied with ties. Can you make it into a elastic belt? In summer, it's short and made of yarn. The blouse should also be more suitable. Now it's mostly chest wrapped. It can be made into a shirt and put on directly."

In the exhibition hall across the Tang Dynasty, Liu Shenfeng introduced that there are more than 500 different patterns in the horse face skirt category alone. At present, the whole chain production has been realized through Datang, and Liu Shenfeng seems calm and relaxed. What he needs to do next is to continue to improve and research and development.

　 "Five thousand years of culture, enough to eat for generations"

"The Yueluo clothes embrace the spring wind, and the jade carved unicorn belt is red." The right lapel is handed over, the commendatory clothing is wide sleeved, and the tie is hidden. Whether it is deep clothing, upper garment and lower garment, or Ru skirt, etc., in the historical evolution, the Han clothing is inheriting and developing.

"Curling should be 4 cm away from the gold thread, which is not enough now!" In the roar of sewing machines, crimping machines and other machines, Li Ling, the designer in Yang Wei's factory, is taking a tape measure and communicating with the cutting workers over and over again. She is worried that the pattern matching the gold thread with the sea wave and other patterns in the overall design will be destroyed according to the previous production method. Li Ling came from Hunan and married in Juye County, not far from Caoxian County. She has been doing fashion design in Hangzhou before. Now that her child is going to junior high school, she will go to Caoxian County, which can be considered as a job at home. "It's fate. I can continue to do fashion design, and my children will no longer be left behind children."

Larger factories will have specialized designers, but most family workshop factories either buy designs online, or use them directly, or go to stores to make editions. Very professional and original design studios are relatively few in Caoxian, which is one of the reasons why Caoxian Hanfu is criticized for plagiarism. Unlike the designers hired by factories like Li Ling, Chen Long has opened a large design studio in Daji Town.

After showing us the cloth samples of the pavilions, pavilions, plum, orchids, bamboos and chrysanthemums that have been produced, Chen Long also showed us the pictures that the designers are drawing. The koi, phoenix and other auspicious animals combine with each other in the traditional patterns such as the sea water river cliff pattern, copper coin pattern, and then collide with the modern colors, which have rich meanings and are particular about each other. Chen Long not only extracted traditional cultural elements from the specific design, but also had many ideas on the research and promotion of ancient Chinese clothing history. These ideas actually come from his concern: "Many schools now teach the history of clothing in the West, and few teachers can teach the history of Chinese clothing, especially the history of Han clothing. This is a cultural fault, but also the development of the subject of clothing history." What Chen Long needs to do now is not only to provide Cao County with more original Han clothing designs, but also to do research, postgraduate training School enterprise cooperation, etc., to promote the Hanfu culture from the educational level.

In the eyes of some people, a horse face skirt may be just a fashionable skirt, but in the eyes of many people involved in the design and promotion of horse face skirt, it is a great carrier of culture.

"I want to endow it with culture, not brand culture, but more the 5000 year culture of China carried by brand culture." In Yao Chixing's view, clothes can be made culturally, and traditional culture can also live. At present, horse face skirt is so popular that it is a very good medium to promote traditional culture.

"The main style of our family is Phoenix, and I used many kinds of crafts. For example, there is Diancui, but I can't stick it with kingfisher hair. I can weave Diancui with knitting method, and let everyone know what this craft is. Our ancestors have so many good things through skirts." Not only Diancui, she is also digging from Caoxian to the whole country From the present to the ancient intangible cultural heritage, these things are used in the production of Hanfu.

"People can't feel the art when it is put on the shelf. We have excavated five thousand years of culture into clothes, which can be worn on holidays, in scenic spots and in daily life. It can be said that it is Caoxian County that makes people can afford to wear Han suits. What I want to do is to improve the quality, so that people can wear beautiful Han suits without spending a lot of money. So many people wear it, which is the inheritance and promotion of traditional culture. "

Because of the long history and culture, Yao Chixing never realized that there would be a bottleneck in the development of Chinese traditional clothing when talking about innovation

Yao Chixing's family is engaged in the export business of wood products, another specialty of Caoxian County, "Some foreigners are tall, so we make horse face skirts with five pleats, and also use Suzhou embroidery, Kesi and other techniques to let them know what the art of Chinese clothing is."

"Cloud like clothes, flower like appearance", each piece of Han clothing with rich cultural heritage and various crafts tells history in the exhibition hall. Yao Chixing said, "In the next 50 years or more, there will be Cao County in the history of Han clothing."

(Source: Gong Shuyun, Lv Bingbing, reporter of Farmer Daily, China Rural Network)