The 2026 (Autumn) 18th Keqiao China Textile City Curtain and Fabric Exhibition concluded, sending a clear signal: curtains are no longer just light-blocking fabric but core soft furnishing elements that define home quality. At the venue, traditional fabric-stacking booths almost disappeared, replaced by full-house immersive experience spaces, marking the industry's official shift from "selling fabric" to "creating scenes and atmosphere."
Background
The most obvious change was the upgrade of booth formats. Modern minimalist, gentle French, retro vintage, and light neo-Chinese style spaces became standard, allowing buyers and designers to see real-world effects. Brands like Orange Impression abandoned single-product displays in favor of full-house styling. Their representative stated that the soft furnishing industry has long left the low-price era of "selling by meter," and competition now focuses on aesthetics, styling, and space creation.
This shift means the value chain is being restructured. For buyers, comparing unit prices alone is meaningless; they need to evaluate suppliers' scene design capabilities and overall styling solutions. For factories, offering integrated solutions from fabric to finished products will determine their position in the supply chain.
Industry Impact
In terms of style, terminal aesthetics have completely moved away from a single internet-famous look, showing a diversified pattern of minimalist base, individual accents, and rising Chinese style. Dopamine bright colors, French retro, and vintage texture styles remain hot, with young consumers favoring niche, textured, and unique options. Among these, light neo-Chinese style became the biggest dark horse, represented by brands like Calamailu, using soft low-saturation backgrounds like light mist gray, milk coffee, and off-white, combined with simplified oriental lines and delicate embroidery, reducing heaviness while enhancing transparency. This style retains elegant oriental charm while fitting modern large flat and improved residences.
Fabric iteration is also significant. Chenille and high-precision fabrics remain mainstream, but yarns are finer and softer, with increased weight and better drape for large windows. Natural eco-friendly fabrics are surging, with cotton-linen blends and Tencel textures favored. Non-toxic, high colorfastness, and biodegradable features have become hard requirements. Window accessories are also upgrading: thickened phantom gauze and textured gauze that are transparent but not see-through have become standard, elevating gauze from supporting to leading role. High-blackout, UV-resistant, permanently shaped ready-made curtains are popular, and blinds, honeycomb shades, and custom-shaped options are expanding, making integrated window treatment a new profit point.
These changes are driven by deeper consumer demand. The younger generation no longer settles for functional shading but seeks spatial emotional expression. This means fabric companies must increase R&D investment to differentiate on texture, drape, and eco-performance; the rise of ready-made and custom curtains requires factories to have flexible production and rapid response capabilities.
In terms of channels, the traditional wait-for-customers model is obsolete. Short-video seeding, live-streaming cloud exhibitions for online traffic, combined with offline immersive experiences for precise deals, have become standard for stores and factories. This fair also launched cloud exhibitions, with online viewership far exceeding offline foot traffic. Buyers select products online and order offline, linking the entire chain. Keqiao's "exhibition-trade integration" advantage is amplified, extending short-term fairs into year-round source markets. Buyers can visit the Beilian physical market to connect with factory orders, shortening supply chains. With overseas buyers visiting, domestic fabric brands are accelerating global expansion.