The closing of the 2026 Autumn Keqiao Curtain Fair left a clear mark on the soft furnishing industry: curtains are no longer just fabric to block light, but core elements that define home texture. The data and trends released at the fair are reshaping the entire supply chain, from fabric mills to terminal stores.
Event Background
The most visible change at this edition was the complete transformation of exhibition halls. Traditional stalls with stacked fabrics nearly disappeared, replaced by immersive full-house real-scene experiences. Spaces styled in modern minimalism, gentle French, retro vintage, and light Chinese style were neatly presented, allowing buyers and designers to directly feel the real effect of curtains in a home setting. This shift means that competition has moved from single-product comparison to overall space-shaping capability.
Light Chinese style emerged as the biggest dark horse at the fair. Unlike the heavy and intricate traditional Chinese designs of previous years, the 2026 version emphasizes "simple Oriental, blending ancient and modern," using low-saturation backgrounds like light mist gray, milk coffee, and rice white, paired with refined Oriental lines and delicate embroidery. This style precisely matches the needs of modern large flat apartments and improved residential housing, reflecting young consumers' preference for personalized and culturally rich soft furnishing solutions.
Industry Impact
Fabric iteration is the core driver of this upgrade. Chenille and high-count precision fabrics remain the market mainstays, but yarns are finer, gram weights higher, and drape better, perfectly fitting the large floor-to-ceiling window trend. Natural and eco-friendly fabrics are surging in popularity, with materials like cotton-linen blends and Tencel textures favored. Odor-free, high colorfastness, and biodegradable have become hard purchasing standards for end consumers, meaning fabric mills must increase environmental investment or risk being eliminated.
Window treatment categories are also undergoing structural upgrades. Thickened illusion gauze and textured gauze that transmit light without seeing through have become standard in homes, elevating sheer curtains from supporting roles to protagonists. Functional ready-made curtains with high shading, sun resistance, and permanent shaping continue to sell well. Venetian blinds, honeycomb blinds, and custom-shaped window treatments are expanding, making integrated whole-home window treatments a new profit direction for stores. For buyers, this means the product selection logic must expand from single curtains to whole-home window solutions.
Channel models are completely revolutionized. The traditional wait-for-customers approach is no longer effective. Short-video seeding, livestream cloud exhibitions for online traffic, combined with offline real-scene experience for precise transactions, have become standard operating models. The fair simultaneously launched cloud exhibition livestreaming, with online viewers far exceeding offline visitors. Customers select products online and order offline, fully opening the omnichannel link. Meanwhile, Keqiao's "exhibition-trade integration" advantage continues to grow, extending the short-term fair into a year-round source market. Buyers can capture annual trends at the fair and also visit the Beilian physical market to connect with factory source orders, greatly shortening the supply-demand chain.