During the Spring Festival this year, the horse-faced skirt became the “New Year’s shirt.”
Who would have thought that the hottest item at the beginning of the Year of the Dragon would be a skirt.
How popular is the horse-faced skirt? Even if you haven't worn it, you must have seen it.
In the past two years, whether it is tourist attractions, major TV parties, or online social platforms, horse-faced skirts have been popular on the screen.
As an extension of traditional Chinese clothing, the horse-faced skirt attracts the attention of young people with its fashionable appearance and modern design, and has emerged as a new force in the Hanfu market.
Just click on a Hanfu live broadcast room, and the anchor is explaining hardA bright red horse-faced skirt. This year is the Year of the Dragon, and the "dragon and phoenix presenting auspiciousness" element on the skirt is one of the selling points. Many sizes sold out as soon as they were put on the shelves.
During the Chinese New Year, many girls wear horse-faced skirts to visit temple fairs and take beautiful photos.
What's even more cruel is that the horse-faced skirt has made the small town of Caoxian famous again.
This Spring Festival, Caoxian County, Shandong Province, the country's largest Hanfu production base, made 300 million yuan from horse-faced skirts. Some merchants "complained" happily: They wanted to have a relaxing New Year, but they didn't expect to be called by customers on the second day of the new year to open their doors for business. They were so busy that they didn't even have time for lunch.
In the past, Caoxian County made an annual income of 7 billion from selling Hanfu.
Why did Caoxian catch this overwhelming wealth in a horse-faced skirt?
01
The gorgeous transformation of a poor small county
Cao County, affiliated to Heze City, Shandong Province, was called Caozhou in ancient times. It is located in the southwest of Shandong Province, at the junction of eight counties in Shandong and Henan provinces.
In the past, the transportation in southwestern Shandong was relatively backward and the industrial base was weak. Like most rural counties in the north, farmers in Cao County mainly relied on agricultural production or working outside as their source of income.
Because Cao County is located in the cotton-producing area of the Yellow River Basin with fertile soil and sufficient water resources, as early as the Ming and Qing Dynasties, agricultural production here was mainly based on cotton cultivation.
At the end of the 20th century, the photo studio trend spread to Caoxian County. People's requirements for wedding photos are gradually increasing. When taking photos, they will change several sets of clothes, such as cheongsam, military uniform, ancient costume, special clothing, wedding dress, etc.
Backed by the high-quality cotton industry, some clever villagers began to produce photo studio clothing during the slack period, and then sold it to photo studios in the county and city. They traveled here and there, and some even rode bicycles to photo studios across the country, as far as Mohe and the Yalu River. However, this sales model of shouldering the responsibility of others is not only inefficient, but also makes little money.
The turn of fortune came from the "first person to eat crabs" - Ren Qingsheng, secretary of Dinglou Village in Cao County.
In 2009, he came into contact with Taobao by chance and decided to borrow more than 1,400 yuan to buy a computer. He purchased the goods from a small workshop in the village that specializes in photo studio costumes to provide performance costumes for the school. The first order sold for more than 2,000 yuan, which was more than the annual income from one acre of land at that time.
Ren Qingsheng's success attracted villagers to follow suit, and gradually led more than 90% of the villagers in Dinglou Village to engage in performance clothing e-commerce. The number of online stores in Dinglou Village has increased rapidly. The largest family has more than 30 online stores, making it China's first "Taobao Village". In 2018, the per capita annual income in this village was as high as 100,000 yuan.
Subsequently, various surrounding villages jumped into this e-commerce wave, gradually sweeping half of Cao County, forming a performance apparel industry circle centered on Dinglou Village. Before 2018, Caoxian County was already the largest performance costume production base in the country, contracting about 70% of the performance costumes on e-commerce platforms every year.
However, the goals of Caoxian people did not stop there.
In 2019, Chinese traditional culture craze spread across the country, and at the same time, Hanfu also ushered in an explosive period. Some businesses in Cao County that previously dealt in performance costumes saw the opportunity and gradually transformed into Hanfu production.
With the help of Hanfu, Caoxian once again successfully broke out of the circle.
02
Hanfu sold 1 billion in Caoxian County in the first quarter
Shandong is the hometown of Confucius and Mencius and a land of etiquette.
Historically, Caoxian County has a profound cultural heritage. It was the founding place of Shang Tang and the first capital of China. It has produced a number of outstanding figures such as Yi Yin, prime minister of the Shang Dynasty, Wu Qi, a military strategist during the Warring States period, and Fan Shengzhi, an agriculturist of the Han Dynasty.
Inheriting Hanfu culture is even more natural for Shangcao County, located on the border of Shandong Province.
In the eyes of the public, Hanfu is still a niche clothing.
However, data shows that so far, the number of people who have ordered Hanfu on e-commerce platforms has reached nearly 20 million, of which 41.78% of Hanfu users will choose affordable Hanfu priced at 100-300 yuan.
Since January this year, the number of searches for Hanfu has skyrocketed. Among them, the horse-faced skirt has become the most popular item in the Hanfu category, with sales of many hot-selling items exceeding one million yuan.
Most of such affordable Hanfu come from Caoxian County, Shandong Province.
Because of its low price and various styles, the Hanfu here has become the choice of many young people. It is known as "the first Hanfu for young people". Shandong has also become the largest source of popular Hanfu products on Taobao.
In addition to affordable Hanfu, some original "high-end" Hanfu have gradually emerged in Caoxian County.
A high-end customized Hanfu designed and produced by Qi Yong of Yibei Hanfu Studio in Ancailou Town sold for 35,000 yuan. Just the part of artificial fabric, it would cost hundreds of people.
There are many people in Caoxian County like Qi Yong who insist on making original Hanfu.
In order to make their own original Hanfu, many people have been studying, from Hanfu forms, drawings to designs, to improve their knowledge structure bit by bit. They have read books such as "The Clothes of the Ming Dynasty" and "The History of Chinese Armor", which are collected by the Confucius House. They also studied the costumes of Yan Shenggong.
Someone taught himself to make a Ming Dynasty-style Hanfu with accessories, and it sold for more than 70,000 yuan. After seeing it, many people couldn't believe that a farmer could make Hanfu with such realistic details and exquisite shape.
Today, Cao County has attracted many highly educated talents and more than 700 college students to return to their hometown to start businesses.
Now, when you walk into Caoxian County, you will see large and small Hanfu enterprises and e-commerce companies, including raw materials, design, processing and sales. Here is a complete Hanfu industry chain.
Someone described it this way: "You can make a Hanfu by walking no more than 5 kilometers here empty-handed."
Currently, Caoxian County has 2,186 Hanfu upstream and downstream enterprises, 12,797 online stores, and nearly 100,000 Hanfu practitioners.
Moreover, Caoxian County’s Hanfu stores cover all e-commerce platforms such as Taobao, Tmall, JD.com, Pinduoduo, Douyin, Kuaishou, and Xiaohongshu, making it the second “super-large Taobao village cluster” in the country.
On Tmall, there are more than 2,500 active Hanfu stores from Caoxian County; on Pinduoduo, 1,200 of the top 2,000 online stores selling Hanfu in the country are from Caoxian County.
Every day, tens of thousands of Hanfu expresses are sent from Cao County to the whole country.
From studio attire, performance clothes, to Hanfu; from traveling here and there to delivering goods across the country by express delivery, in Cao County today, people rely on their hard-working hands to carve out a way to start a business and become rich, and use their strength to amaze the world in their hometown.
The development process of Caoxian County is also a reflection of China's transformation and upgrading of many industries and high-quality development in the process of realizing rural revitalization.A true portrayal of the road to development.
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