One out of every five sweaters in the world is produced in Dalang, Dongguan. This knitwear powerhouse, which started from OEM processing in the 1980s, now churns out 900 million sweaters annually, with a total industry chain transaction value exceeding 72 billion yuan, 30,000 market entities, and over 200,000 employees. It has become the ideal window to observe how textile intangible cultural heritage transforms from a cultural symbol into an industrial engine.
On June 25, the 10th Textile Intangible Cultural Heritage Conference was held at the Dalang Knitwear Trade Center. Co-organized by the China National Textile and Apparel Council and the Dalang government, the event did not dwell on traditional heritage protection narratives. Instead, it directly addressed the industrial integration proposition of 'heritage plus knitwear.'
Depth Behind the Data
Dalang's numbers speak for themselves. An annual output of 900 million sweaters means that, based on a global consumption of roughly 4.5 billion units per year, Dalang alone covers 20% of the world's sweater supply. The 72 billion yuan transaction value reflects a closed loop from yarn sourcing, design and sampling, knitting and finishing, to brand marketing. This industrial thickness provides a natural testing ground for the commercialization of heritage techniques.
Deng Xiaoding, a second-level inspector from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, explicitly positioned textile heritage as a key pathway for 'cultivating new productive forces and building a modern industrial system.' The industry implication is clear: heritage is no longer just a protection target for cultural departments but has been incorporated into the technology and design resource pool for industrial upgrading.
Sun Ruizhe, president of the China National Textile and Apparel Council, broke down the integration points from four dimensions: embedding into the service economy to find value models, integrating into the intelligent economy to reshape ecosystems, leveraging the tech economy to build fulcrums, and pursuing systematic and dynamic innovation. This essentially provides an actionable roadmap for industrialization.
From Exhibit to Commodity
Cases showcased at the conference revealed the real path of heritage transformation. Local enterprises like Impression Plain have already combined high-end cashmere with heritage elements to form product systems. Tongmen Apparel has merged traditional Chaozhou hand-hook craftsmanship with computerized flat-knitting technology, achieving a balance between handmade aesthetics and mass production efficiency.
Professor Guo Ruiping from the Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology emphasized a key judgment: the core of heritage transformation is 'the upgrading and reshaping of cognition across multiple dimensions,' and it must be adapted to local conditions. Using her 24 Solar Terms series and Tibet-themed works as examples, she explained that heritage elements must undergo a four-step transformation—'contemporization, fashionization, lifestyle integration, and industrialization'—before they can move from museum exhibits to products consumers are willing to pay for.
Two achievements released by Hua Shan, director of the CNTAC Intangible Heritage Office—the annual development report and the 'Heritage·Origin' young designer support plan—provide institutional and talent support for this transformation. The latter, in collaboration with Beijing Fashion Week, offers independent designers and young inheritors a platform to showcase their work, essentially bridging the last mile from design to market.
Industry Chain Reactions
Dalang is not an isolated case. Holding the heritage conference inside an industrial cluster sends a clear signal: the focus of future textile heritage work will shift from 'protection' to 'application.' For buyers, this means a significant increase in available heritage-element products, no longer limited to small-batch handcrafted items but scalable to mass production.
For upstream yarn suppliers, the introduction of heritage elements creates new differentiation opportunities. When end products require specific weaving textures or dyeing techniques, yarn suppliers need to adjust their product development direction in advance. For downstream brands and trading companies, the heritage label is becoming a quantifiable premium point—especially as European and American markets increasingly demand cultural traceability in their supply chains.
A noteworthy detail: the Douyin (TikTok) platform shared a successful case of Zhuang brocade commercialization at the conference, indicating that sales channels for heritage products are expanding from offline exhibitions to live-stream e-commerce, potentially improving conversion efficiency.