The end of the year and the beginning of the year are important moments for summarizing the past and planning for the future. In order to showcase the wisdom and foresight of industry leaders, share their successful experiences and profound reflections in 2024, and look forward to the strategic planning and grand blueprint for 2025, Textile and Clothing Weekly has specially opened the "Quality Leadership 2025 · Pioneer Talk" column. Through in-depth interviews with leading enterprises, clusters, markets, and brand leaders, valuable insights and references are provided to the industry, promoting industry exchanges and cooperation, and jointly developing new quality productivity.

　　New quality productivity and national unified market are the two key points for high-quality economic development in Chinese path to modernization. The domestic textile and clothing professional market, which is in a period of deep adjustment and transformation, is actively exploring new formats and models, accelerating the development of new quality productivity.

　　Guangzhou Cotton International Fashion City (hereinafter referred to as "Cotton"), which has won multiple honors such as "National Textile and Clothing Creative Design Demonstration Park (Platform)" and "China's Top Ten Professional Markets" from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, has been adhering to the development of "fashion, branding, internationalization, and digitization" for more than ten years, leading the traditional professional market to upgrade to an original design brand "incubator" and a fashion ecological port model covering the entire industry chain.

　　In 2025, red cotton will enter the fourth "five-year development" deep-water zone. Bu Xiaoqiang, Executive Chairman of Guangdong Clothing and Apparel Industry Association and General Manager of Guangzhou Cotton International Fashion City, was interviewed by this magazine, summarizing the innovative achievements and successful experiences of the fashion city in recent years, and sharing the prospects and plans for the next stage of high-quality development of the market and industry.

　　Bu Xiaoqiang stated that in the past year, the business situation of red cotton has achieved recovery growth, and the overall performance has exceeded expectations. Entering 2025, Red Cotton will strengthen its positive interaction with Guangzhou Zhongmen Gate and Guangzhou Chengda Fashion Plaza, both under the Red Cotton Group, on the development tone of stabilizing scale, adjusting structure, and improving quality and efficiency, consolidating the "three in one" fashion industry development pattern and forming a strong fashion synergy.

　　Innovative curatorial operation

　　——Drive market revitalization, scene updates, and brand innovation　　

　　With the changing market environment and consumer concepts, wholesale and retail are gradually integrating, and the new generation of consumers' pursuit of interests, appearance, and trends is constantly stimulating the spontaneous upgrading of brands and markets. Bu Xiaoqiang stated that Red Cotton, which insists on leading the industry trend, focuses on both hardware shopping scenarios and operational services, driving market renewal, scene updates, and brand innovation, and maintaining competitiveness in the development of the industry.

　　Firstly, adhere to the principle of 'renovation every year and upgrading every three years'. In 2024, Red Cotton not only successfully passed the annual supervision and audit of the ISO quality management system, but also carried out hardware renovation, environmental optimization, and scene upgrading of the fashion city, transforming the atrium on floors 5-8 into a multifunctional fashion area for buyers to relax and interact with; Drive the upgrading of the image of merchants' stores with a "thousand stores, one thousand faces" approach, keep up with international trends in display design, and create a vibrant and trendy commercial atmosphere.

　　Secondly, achieve "seasonal themes, monthly activities, and weekly scenes". Regularly replacing "new skins" in public areas, creating check-in points and art installations with different themes; Two sessions of Cotton International Fashion Week, ordering season, procurement festival and other activities are held year-round. As the leading market in the Liuhua commercial district of Yuexiu District, actively participating in important fashion and business activities in Yuexiu District. For example, participating in the 2024 China Flowing Flower International Fashion Festival and recommending "fashionable flowing flowers" to consumers at home and abroad; Participate in the "Guangzhou Global Consumer Season PRO MARKET" continuation event of the China International Consumer Center City Boutique Consumption Month, and be listed as a "must visit market in the Bay Area", showcasing the vitality of commerce and driving characteristic consumption.

　　Thirdly, promote originality and strengthen the brand matrix of "red cotton series" designers. In recent years, according to the development positioning and strategy of the group, Red Cotton has focused on cultivating original designer brands and optimizing on-site merchants, gradually forming a brand matrix of "strong original design ability, strong supply chain ability, and strong brand operation ability". There are currently over 1000 merchants and about 600 designer brands, with more than 30% of designers having overseas study backgrounds. Bu Xiaoqiang stated that many merchants, out of recognition and trust in the business philosophy and operational capabilities of the Cotton Group, have set up brand headquarters and designer studios in multiple locations under the group's Guangzhou Zhongmen Gate and Guangzhou Chengda Fashion City.

　　Fourth, play a beautiful "international card" and help Chinese brands explore the "deep sea". Red Cotton has been expanding into overseas markets for many years and has been a long-term partner of international fashion systems such as Milan Fashion Week and PITTI UOMO Men's Fashion Show. In 2024, for the first time after the pandemic, HIVE SHOWROOM, a subsidiary of Red Cotton, showcased Chinese fashion designer brands SELAH, YOUWEI, and JUNLI at the official exhibitions of Paris Fashion Week and Milan Fashion Week. They also teamed up with Italian boutique 10 Corso Como to open a fast track store, allowing Chinese fashion designer brands to deeply test the international market. In addition, Bu Xiaoqiang also visited Hyundai Department Store Seoul in South Korea for in-depth exchanges on fashion business model innovation, which was highly valued by the South Korean fashion industry, news media, and other authoritative industry media. He also visited Guangzhou Zhongmen for on-site inspection and learning, promoting the deepening and extension of China South Korea fashion cooperation to various links in the industry chain.

　　Innovation Smart Fashion Week

　　——Empower brand promotion and accelerate the integration of digital and practical development

　　Bu Xiaoqiang said that under the trend of digital intelligence in the industry, as the most eye-catching IP project of Kapok in the industry, and as the only urban fashion week, it was included in the key activity of the "Cotton Textile Consumption Season" of the Ministry of Commerce. Since 2023, the Kapok International Fashion Week has accelerated its progress to digital intelligence fashion week, focusing on the upgrading path of fashion commerce in the Internet background, creating momentum and enabling businesses, and leading the industry reform.

　　For example, the 12th and 13th Cotton International Fashion Week, which successfully concluded in June and November 2024, focused on hot topics such as full industry chain linkage, original design, art trends, and digitalization. A total of 100+brand shows, brand ordering events, e-commerce product selection events, hot trend x preferred fabrics events, fabric x artist joint exhibitions, and trend flash mobs were held, attracting more than 2000 clothing brands, 500+fabric suppliers, 5000+clothing designers, 1000+clothing anchors, and fashion influencers to participate. It attracted more than 50000 offline participants, with over 20 million views on various platforms and live streaming rooms across the network, as well as social media check-in and forwarding frequency.

　　The power of digitization is intuitively reflected in data. During the Fashion Week, over 500 clothing brand merchants on floors 5-9 of the Fashion City simultaneously opened new season new product orders, attracting more than 10000 agents, buyers, and buyers from all over the country to come and select, purchase, order, and connect with commerce; The organizing committee of the Fashion Week also organized on-site merchants to participate in launching promotional activities for C-end consumers, comprehensively boosting consumption. According to feedback from a merchant operating a men's fashion brand in a cotton field, buyers who come to place orders during Fashion Week are more precise, with a reservation attendance rate of 90%. In addition, the brand also receives customized promotion services during Fashion Week, such as traffic support from e-commerce and social media platforms.

　　Bu Xiaoqiang stated that on the one hand, Red Cotton focuses on content and services to bring the concept of digital fashion week to life; On the other hand, we actively connect and introduce high-end industry resources and digital resources. For example, jointly building a digital platform for the Zhongmen Fashion Port industry with the China Textile Federation Circulation Branch, creating a benchmark for industrial digital development models; We have also partnered with national industry organizations such as the China Textile Federation Circulation Branch, China Fashion Designers Association, and China Textile Industry Enterprise Management Association to hold a series of specialized and high-level forums and conferences on topics such as industrial digitization and supply chain integration, promoting the integration of digital and practical development of the fashion industry; We also held training seminars on live broadcast e-commerce, overseas e-commerce and other platforms in cooperation with Tiktok, Xiaohongshu, Alibaba and other platforms to improve enterprise e-commerce capabilities.

　　Only with the determination that cannot be made, there is nothing that cannot be accomplished

　　How should we break through in 2025 in the face of a sluggish economy and cold expectations—— Breaking through the situation means breaking oneself and constantly surpassing oneself, "said Bu Xiaoqiang." Only with the determination that cannot be made, there is nothing that cannot be accomplished

　　Innovation makes everything possible. Looking ahead to the development trend of the industry in 2025, Bu Xiaoqiang analyzed that more and more consumers will step out of their homes and rediscover the offline world. Consumers are beginning to pursue deeper emotional connections and spiritual resonance, such as the feeling of touching clothes and trying them on with their own hands, which can only be obtained through real offline interactions. With the increasing proportion of cultural tourism, outdoor activities, offline shopping, etc. in consumers' lives, clothing companies need to grasp trends, constantly innovate products and fashion scenes, and allow consumers to step out of their homes, integrate into offline, and connect with brands.

　　Year after year, year after year. The trendy concept of "moving towards the new" has been practiced in red cotton for more than ten years. In the year of the end of the 14th Five Year Plan, Red Cotton will implement and refine the development of new quality productivity, continuously innovate in scenario based, platform based, and international development, and set a benchmark for high-quality development in the industry, "said Bu Xiaoqiang