Independent Designers Will Break Your Impression Of Knitting.

With the advent of the autumn and winter season, the heavy woolen sweater, the high performance warm cashmere sweater, the sweater full of design details and the knitted woolen knitted fabrics with tailoring and color patterns of cardigan and woolen coat constitute the wardrobe that takes into account the needs of warmth and style.
For a long time, knitting has been regarded as a category of clothing, and is an important growth point in the brand's autumn and winter series. However, knitting is not only a functional material of warmth, but also a medium that can integrate tradition and innovation and convey a new fashion style. The design masters represented by Missoni, Sonia Rykiel and Alaia reshape the knitting design during 1960, 70 and 80s, and create a feminine image of emancipating form, freedom, grace and strength.
Looking at the brand development path of knitting design, we can be able to spy on the ups and downs of this industry. Pringle of Scotland, a 204 year old knitwear sweater manufacturer in Scotland, has been optimistic about its future prospects despite its losses for several years. It has gradually reshaped its brand image while strengthening retail development. Missoni, a family business, is famous for its colorful zigzag patterns. Although family businesses have suffered many twists and turns, they still maintain distinct brand vitality. The brand is in the stage of positive development with the goal of listing in 2023. In 2013, Loro Piana, a top cashmere manufacturer in Italy, was bought by LVMH group at a high price. After completing the transformation of family business into a modern enterprise with a perfect management structure, it entered a steady growth trend. Erdos, the largest cashmere brand in China, is also heading for all aspects of brand remodeling and upgrading, aiming at building four brand systems for different levels of consumer demand, deepening the brand image and strengthening the connection with consumers through innovative marketing. It is regrettable that the French knitting brand Sonia Rykiel, which has a 50 year history, has not been reborn in the predicament, and the brand has declared bankruptcy liquidation.
At the moment, the knitting market is heading for a more diversified and closely integrated direction with technological development. From yarn to weaving, profile to tailoring, design details to pattern texture, brand is increasingly paying attention to its unique style aesthetics in various knitted designs. From The Row, Jacquemus, Loewe to Ganni, Joseph, Lauren Manoogian, these brands in different market positioning products, their unique knitting style has won more women's love. On the other hand, the Woolmark Prize, which gradually expanded its influence around the world, has set up an excellent platform for young independent design to explore knitting design.
Knitting design is increasingly welcomed by more consumer groups and has achieved rapid growth. On the one hand, it has benefited from the research and development of innovative materials and weaving. The application fields of knitted products are constantly expanding. The integrated fabric technology has given the Nike and other sports brands a sense of futuristic design with function, comfort and shape. The fully fashioned knitted production technology developed by Shima Seiki has been applied in a large scale. In 2016, UNIQLO launched its strategic cooperative development plan and created a Innovation Factory. The development of knitting technology has also been confirmed in the Chinese knitting industry market. According to reports, the production and sales of China's knitting industry increased steadily in 2018, and knitted fabrics were better than knitted garments. The industry has stepped up its industrial processing and production capacity, and has invested heavily in the development of knitted fabrics. As the largest vertical knitting garment manufacturer in China, the Shenzhou group, which supplies Uniqlo, Nike, Addidas and other brands, is reflected in its performance of 54 times market value over the past 8 years.
Besides, knitting design plays an indispensable role in the proposition of sustainable development and circular economy development. Compared with shuttle fabrics, knitted fabrics have the characteristics of reducing production waste, recycling raw materials, and high quality and high efficiency production, which will enable the brand to formulate and implement sustainable development solutions more effectively.
Therefore, how do young knitted brands with Chinese genes initiate exploration and innovation and bring unprecedented knitting designs to more consumers?
The PH5 for the BoF China Prize Grand Prix was established and operated by a former roommate who studied and worked in New York. Zhang Mijia (Mijia Zhang), who graduated from Parsons Design Institute, worked with the knitting factory of her roommate Lin Wei (Wei Lin) family. The whole knitting graduation series has won the Kering x Parsons design award. In 2015, after working with Christopher Kane and Nike, she worked in partnership with Lin Wei, a business consultant who worked in Wall Street, to build a young brand that promotes knitting design.
PH5 is positioned as a knitwear laboratory. By exploring innovative materials and weaving methods, a series of knitting knitted fabrics of lively interest and color jumps are created. Irregular geometric patterns, wave curve clipping and multi-layered material superimposition all reflect the distinctive style of PH5. "We will get a lot of feedback that our knitting design is unique. Often other brands will do the knitted garments we will not do, our design also has other brands can not give the uniqueness. "
In the 2020 spring and summer series, they brought a set of design made of UV reflective thread. The knitted garments become bright pink under the sunlight, and are popular in the exhibition. Last year, PH5 built a dress for the virtual model Lil Miquela and artificial intelligent robot Sophia, and further realized the vision of combining knitting and technology.
Behind the PH5 design innovation is the close integration with the family knitting factory. From the design and development stage, it will work closely with the mechanic and engineer. "In a sense, this is the collision and blending between two different design languages."
Positioning at high-end Advanced Contemporary, how do brands control and balance R & D costs? Lin Wei explained: "in this respect, we will be more flexible. Usually, when we use more expensive raw materials, we will design and manufacture the technology with simpler labor saving time. Conversely, more basic weaving will be used for basic materials, so as to achieve a balance on the price of a single product. In addition, although backed by family factories, they strictly keep innovation and technology to the brand itself to ensure uniqueness.
In the series called "Ivy rebellious girls", they first applied 3D seamless knitting technology: "we have been trying to do this for a few seasons, but because of the design of PH5, most of them have various colors or patterns, and weaving and floral lines are more complex. The first 3D knitting technology is difficult to achieve. This season, through technical personnel's exploration, we have created a series of single twist twisted rope weaving. We hope that every season we can try to promote the limitations of this technology. " In this season, the brand tries to buy and sell for the first time.
The i-am-chen brand created by Zhi Chen has been invited to New York for the show in Tmall's "China Cool" season. In this series, a brand-new woven brand Chen / RGB is introduced to further construct its relaxed and ingenious design aesthetics.
"I am from the engineering background, so I am very interested in technology. I began to start knitting design with yarn design as the starting point. In fact, knitting or weaving is not a design itself, but a carrier of technology and material. Knitting has its own limitations. I hope to show the most appropriate way of expression, "the designer told BoF.
After graduating from London Fashion Institute in 2017, her knitting series was supported and rewarded by Fashion Scout platform, which opened the way to create a brand. When the brand was first created, it was commissioned by the New York Museum of modern art (MoMA) to create a knitted pencil skirt for the fashion exhibition "Item: Is Fashion Modern". This year, she became the representative of the Asian wool region award. In this series, she tried to break through the different forms of woolen fabrics, from light to 100 grams of fine wool yarn to a jacket with the appearance of feather quilting, giving multiple layers and textures to wool under the construction of bright colors and geometric stripes.
Zhi Chen has a clear vision for the future development of the brand: she hopes that the brand can build up the core technical barriers, and start with the development of deeper fabrics and fibers. "I want to be able to dig deep in one field to achieve an irreplaceable nature," she said.
Swaying, created by Huang Shasha, focuses more on the perceptual and perceptive side of soft knitted design. "In my opinion, each yarn has its own unique character. Yarn can not just be a material, but also needs to be like a way of telling stories. Each yarn can express the invisible feelings and emotions in every inspiration, that is the way swaying narrates the story. She explains that the brand name captures the dynamics of the machine and body during knitting, and also represents the sense of laziness and comfort of designers when knitting. It is the knit's fascination with knitting.
After graduating from the knitted women's wear major in Royal College of Art in 2017, Huang invited Sasa to the Lablehood to participate in the exhibition. He opened the brand way of creating a gentle and tough independent female image through the rich visual language of knitted fabric. The designer's fascination with touch and detail is reflected in the combination of different materials in design and the change of knitted structure. She is good at combining heavy woolen fabric with light and transparent material to create a streamlined vertical profile.
"Swaying has been developing the tradition of its own yarn and materials, and through continuous experiments, it has developed some more unique things, such as the reflective yarn and the falling effect," she said.
She insists on thinking and designing brands from the source, starting with raw materials and yarns: "at every year's yarn exhibition, we understand the latest yarn design and material selection, and begin to think constructively in the brain for the next season's works. Subsequent research is more like finding a balance between reality and ideas. After having a complete train of thought, combined with the possibility of real materials and knitting technology, we repeated experiments on every idea, and only by double certification of studio (concept) and factory (production) can our design really turn into the last product.
Ply-Knits is in a more mature stage of brand development. Founder Carolyn Yim comes from the three generation of textile and knitting industry. Graduated from the Department of literature and art of Columbia University, she inspired the unique way of dressing women and men in literature, history and art.
She observed: "we will notice people who wear relaxed but confident gait. They decorate everything from simplicity, style, color, proportion and material. This is not because of the design of a brand. 99%, from their comfortable posture, clothing is only an extension of their existence; the other 1% comes from the degree of fit, high quality materials and the sense of coloring of each person. My design serves the latter. I hope that Ply-Knits and Dreyden can become men's and women's wear for the wearer to interpret himself.
A year ago, the dialogue with the market department of Lac Crawford prompted her to create the Dreyden for men's knitting brand. She noticed the difference between knit buying ideas between the two: women consumers are more concerned about the fashion style in knitting design, while men pay more attention to the raw materials and their seasons and functions of knitting, and she is still exploring the balance between them.
Compared with Dreyden, handmade from cashmere of Loro Piana factory, she used the waste yarn (Deadstock) wool yarn as far as possible in the design of Ply-Knits, and refined it later. She compares the knitted raw materials to seasonal ingredients, and the scarcity of stock wool has the advantage of recyclable use, and it has the uniqueness of materials produced in mass production. "This means that I have certain limitations on color and yarn type. But I like the increased pressure and boundaries, because it forces me to be creative.
Born in the three generation of knitting family, she observed the changes in the knitting industry. "We have gone through the age of specialization and handmade (1950s, my grandmother's time), to the age of automation and accelerated production (1980s, my father's era), and to return to the era of professionalism and strengthening advanced technology, and serving high-end brands." Five years ago, when she joined the management of the family industry and created a knitting brand, her experience in operation and production was more vertically integrated, which reflected in the brand's sustainable development.
"The fact is that contemporary China has set strict standards for environmental protection, and if it fails to act effectively, it will face closure." To this end, she drew up a systematic checklist: "from the design point of view: is this product necessary for design and production? Will this style become a visual pollution after a season? To production: which factory did you get this yarn? Is there a similar substitute for waste inventory? How much material waste and water will be generated? Then to social responsibility: is it improving personal growth in teams? How to create a community working environment for motivating employees? Is it maintaining professional skills that are disappearing? Is there a positive economic impact for Dongguan? Most importantly, all concerns must be consistent with the sustainability of business development planning. "
Looking at PH5, i-am-chen, Swaying and Ply-Knits, four young knitted brands with Chinese genes, they have made a breakthrough attempt to break people's inherent cognition of knitted design. From its own experience, the difficulty of focusing on knitting is to balance the cost of labor and time in material and technology research and development, and to ensure accurate grasp of each link.
Comparatively, consumers' thinking setting for knitting design has also increased the difficulty of brand development, but at the same time, it is also an excellent opportunity to guide consumers and break through. At this stage, buyers are the main selling channels of these brands, and at the same time, they will further build direct consumer oriented online channels and communities. It is worth mentioning that these brands achieved profitability in the early days of their founding, with steady growth in sales and strong future prospects with their solid products and constantly developing creativity.