A small county town in northern China has turned its autumn-winter new product fair into a two-month industrial feast, even integrating cross-border e-commerce training into the opening ceremony. On August 1, the 2026 Autumn-Winter Xiaoli Garment Fair opened at the Xiong'an Design Center in Rongcheng County, Xiong'an New Area, with exhibitions in Dongxiaoli Village lasting two months. This is not a simple ordering fair but a systematic attempt by Rongcheng's Xiaoli garment industry to escape homogeneous competition and open overseas markets.
Background: Four Decades of Industrial Accumulation and Transformation Anxiety
Xiaoli's garment industry started in the 1980s, evolving from family workshops and rural markets into a cluster specializing in middle-aged jackets, fleece, autumn-winter cotton wear, and outdoor functional clothing. With solid craftsmanship and cost-effectiveness, these products have sold well domestically and internationally, establishing the 'Xiaoli Garment' regional brand. However, bottlenecks such as intensifying homogeneous competition and over-reliance on the domestic market have made industrial upgrading urgent.
The fair is a response to this anxiety. The opening forum, fashion shows, supply chain sharing sessions, roundtable discussions, and cross-border e-commerce practical training all point to one goal: converting manufacturing advantages into brand and channel advantages. Notably, the fair includes two-day cross-border e-commerce training covering platforms like Amazon, TikTok, Ozon, and Etsy, with courses ranging from store operations to brand building, AI digital design, automated production line implementation, and even 'one-person company' distribution models. This pragmatic arrangement directly addresses the pain point that local small and medium garment enterprises lack overseas channel operation capabilities.
Industrial Impact: How Four Upgrading Directions Reshape County-Level Garment Industry
At the opening ceremony, Xiaoli Town Mayor He Wanyu outlined four upgrading directions: cross-border e-commerce channels, AI+3D digital design, renewable green fabrics, and automated intelligent production lines. These directions are not isolated but form an interconnected transformation chain. Cross-border e-commerce solves 'where to sell,' AI+3D design solves 'how to respond quickly to market,' renewable fabrics solve 'how to meet international environmental standards,' and intelligent production lines solve 'how to reduce costs and increase efficiency.' For a county-level industrial belt like Xiaoli, all four are indispensable.
The head of Xiong'an New Area Cross-border E-commerce Comprehensive Service Center, Li Guanglei, detailed supportive policies for cross-border e-commerce, providing policy guarantees for enterprises going global. In his keynote speech, Ju Xinyu, President of China Textile, pointed out the deep logic: under pressure on domestic demand and coexisting overseas rigid demand, county-level garment industries must leverage location and policy advantages to take a differentiated path—consolidating manufacturing advantages, using digitalization to improve efficiency, opening global terminal channels through cross-border e-commerce, and extending from processing to design, branding, and marketing. This means Xiaoli is no longer content to be an OEM but aims to become a brand cluster with pricing power.
The fashion show at the fair showcased windbreakers, fleece, outdoor functional clothing, and other full-series autumn-winter products, with renewable environmentally friendly fabrics as a highlight. This detail sends a clear signal: Xiaoli is proactively aligning with international green consumption trends. Jinyi Chemical Fiber's video presentation of recycled polyester (rPET) fabrics is a direct response. For buyers, this means autumn-winter garments sourced from Xiaoli will increasingly carry environmental certifications, helping meet the growing sustainability requirements of European and American buyers.
Practical Recommendations: How County-Level Industrial Belts Can Leverage Fairs to Break Through
The fair brings together over 100 local garment manufacturers and full industry chain entities, including cross-border platforms, industrial parks, and intelligent equipment manufacturers. This 'government sets the stage, enterprises perform' model offers a replicable blueprint for other county-level industrial belts. The roundtable dialogue, where cross-border platforms, service providers, sellers, and manufacturers exchanged views, aims to break information barriers and directly connect factories with overseas channels.
For Buyers - Focus on products using renewable fabrics at the fair, and plan supply chains that meet international environmental standards in advance to avoid losing orders due to compliance issues. - Use the two-month exhibition period to conduct on-site factory inspections in Dongxiaoli Village, focusing on intelligent production line upgrades to assess suppliers' delivery capabilities and quality stability. - Establish contacts with participating cross-border platform service providers to explore joint procurement or distribution cooperation, reducing dependence on a single market.
For Foreign Trade Enterprises - Prioritize participation in cross-border e-commerce practical training, choose platforms matching your products (e.g., TikTok for short-video sales, Ozon for Russian-speaking markets), and formulate a phased global expansion plan. - Adopt AI+3D design tools to shorten sampling cycles from weeks to days, quickly responding to small-batch, multi-style overseas orders. - Cooperate with local chemical fiber enterprises to use rPET and other recycled fabrics, enhancing product value, while applying for Xiong'an New Area's cross-border e-commerce policy subsidies to reduce going-global costs.
The long-term value of the Xiaoli fair lies in whether it can truly push the industry from 'manufacturing' to 'smart manufacturing plus branding.' If the four upgrading directions are sustainably implemented, this small town near Xiong'an may become a benchmark for county-level garment industry transformation nationwide.