The horse-faced skirt is a traditional costume in ancient China. It is named after the "horse-faced" defensive building on the ancient city wall. In the past two years, Hanfu has continued to enter the public eye. Among them, the horse-faced skirt has become the "New Year's shirt" for young people with its simple and versatile style.
During the Spring Festival this year, horse-faced skirts have become the "New Year shirt" for many people. Many young people will wear horse-faced skirts when visiting temple fairs, lantern viewing parties, and even visiting relatives and friends. With the popularity of Hanfu culture in China, sales of Hanfu, represented by horse-faced skirts, have surged on e-commerce platforms, and they have frequently appeared at major Spring Festival galas.
This "most dazzling Chinese style" is not accidental
For most consumers, the first time they got to know horse-faced skirts was the "plagiarism of horse-faced skirts" incident by an international brand in July 2022. On the streets abroad, many Chinese and international students wore Hanfu and held placards to protest, calling on the international brand to "plagiarize horse-faced skirts". Brands stop cultural appropriation.
After this incident, horse-faced skirts began to appear in the public eye. From international students wearing horse-faced skirts to visit museums and attend graduation ceremonies, to Internet celebrity bloggers showing off their horse-faced skirts on social platforms. Horse-faced skirts Skirts are gradually gaining popularity. According to e-commerce platform data, more than 730,000 horse-faced skirts were sold on the platform during "Double Eleven" in 2023, and horse-faced skirts were rated as one of the top ten products on the platform in 2023. E-commerce platform data shows that in the first two months of this year, the search volume for horse-faced skirts in the Hanfu category increased 23 times year-on-year, and the search volume for new Chinese-style clothing increased 12 times year-on-year.
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With the promotion of social media, the promotion of goods by Internet celebrities, and the sentiment of cultural confidence, the horse-faced skirt has become popular during the Spring Festival, when the traditional cultural atmosphere is the strongest, and has become the first Hanfu item in the wardrobe of many young people.
Friendly unit price and effective for daily wear
It has become an important reason why horse-faced skirts have entered social platforms
Big data from an e-commerce platform shows that since January 2024, horse-faced skirts have become a popular Hanfu product.The most popular single product in the category, the reporter used "horse face skirt" as the keyword on the platform and searched a total of 4,800 products according to sales rankings. It was found that the average price of a single product of horse face skirt is 147 yuan, of which more than half of the single product price They are all under 100 yuan. Such an affordable price is also an important reason why horse-faced skirts are so popular among young people.
It is worth mentioning that the horse-faced skirt does not simply copy ancient elements, but combines its form with modern popular elements to create a unique style that is both traditional and modern. Therefore, compared with traditional Hanfu, the horse-faced skirt is more everyday-oriented. In some work and life scenes, the shape of the traditional Hanfu may appear exaggerated, but the shape of the horse-faced skirt is not provocative and is more life-like.
Sales in two months were nearly 550 million yuan!
Horse-faced skirts in Caoxian County, Shandong become popular
In 2022, the number of Hanfu fans in my country will be 8.507 million, and the market size will reach 12.54 billion yuan. Although the market size of Hanfu continues to grow, this market only accounts for less than 1% of my country's clothing sales of 1.3 trillion in 2022. Industry reports believe that as the "post-95s" and "post-00s" gradually move to the center of the economic stage, they are expected to become the main group of national fashion consumers, further releasing the potential of the Hanfu market and promoting the accelerated development of market vitality. The scale of my country's Hanfu market is expected to increase in 2026 exceeded 20 billion yuan.
Hanfu has developed rapidly, and countless entrepreneurs and capital have poured into the Hanfu "track", making Hanfu break through the circle and become a trend, and it has gradually become an emerging industry. According to data from the enterprise query platform, there are currently more than 5,800 Hanfu companies in my country, and more than 2,600 related companies will be added in 2023 alone, which is the peak in the past ten years. Among the 4,800 horse-faced skirts ranked by sales volume on the e-commerce platform, 1,829 are from Guangdong, 1,011 are from Shandong, and 935 are from Zhejiang.
Cao County, Heze, which has become popular on the Internet in recent years, was originally a processing base for various performance costumes in my country. Under the influence of the epidemic, it seized the opportunity and transformed into a Hanfu production base, becoming one of the early areas for the industrialization of Hanfu manufacturing in China. In the first two months of this year alone, sales of horse-faced skirts in Cao CountyThe amount is close to 550 million yuan.
On the fabric accessories street in Caoxian County, there are thousands of stores of various sizes gathered on the 10-kilometer-long street. The production of a horse-faced skirt can be completed here, from fabric to related accessories such as zippers and buttons, as well as pleating, printing, and cutting.
Starting from the first day of the Lunar New Year this year, major offline horse-faced skirt and Hanfu experience wholesale and purchase stores in Caoxian County have been open for business. Merchants said that due to the shortage of horse-faced skirt fabrics, many orders have been delayed until a month before production can be completed.
Wang Suoqing, manager of Hanfu sales store in Cao County, Heze, Shandong: "If you buy a horse-faced skirt now, it will be shipped in 20 days at the earliest. Almost all the horse-faced skirts in the whole big market town were sold out. ”
A horse-faced skirt with four skirt doors at the front and back. The two weeks coincide and the four sides are pleated. A skirt requires about 6 meters of fabric. The hem of the skirt is carved with dragons and phoenixes on various colored silk threads, with gorgeous patterns. Some complicated patterns require a high-precision jacquard machine to be knitted in one stitch. At present, most of the horse-faced skirt fabrics in Cao County come from factories in Zhejiang and other places. Fabric was in short supply, and horse-faced skirts were delayed in production. Around the Spring Festival, Zhang Yu, who is engaged in the production of horse-faced skirts, worries about the orders he owes customers every day.
Owner of the production workshop of a brand Hanfu company in Cao County, Heze, ShandongGuan Zhang Yu: From the Spring Festival to now, our live broadcast has sold a total of more than 200,000 orders. There have been basically no major live broadcasts since the eighth day of the Lunar New Year. If all 200,000 orders are produced, it will take about half a month to a month.
It's not just Zhang Yu. Most of the horse-faced skirt companies in Cao County have been rushing to work recently. Han Meng, the mayor of Daji Town in Cao County, has been conducting intensive research since the beginning of the year to find ways to solve the urgent need of cloth shortage for the companies in the town. In Han Meng’s impression, at the beginning of 2022, there were few horse-faced skirt companies in Cao County and the output was not high. At present, the number of companies has surged to 1,500, with nearly 60,000 employees.
To catch the "wealth from the sky"
Not an easy task
The popularity of the horse-faced skirt may seem accidental, but behind it is the long-term accumulation of cultural confidence and the development of the Hanfu industry chain. Its popularity during the Spring Festival can also be seen as a meaningful category awareness education for the Hanfu industry for mass consumers. . At present, the development momentum of Hanfu is booming. As netizens said, this "heavenly wealth" has arrived. Whether it can catch it depends on the design, production and operation capabilities of enterprises and brands.
