When one out of every five sweaters globally comes from Dalan, the next move for this Guangdong town is not simply about taking more orders. On August 26, 22 Dalan knitwear enterprises entered Shanghai with a sourcing event, sending a clearer signal: capacity scale is the past, while flexible manufacturing and original design are the tickets for the next stage.
The industrial confidence behind the data
Dalan's scale remains striking in a global context. Since the first knitting factory was established in 1979, the town now produces about 900 million sweaters annually, accounting for 20% of the global share. The full industry chain records an annual transaction value exceeding 72 billion yuan, with 150,000 computerized flat knitting machines operating around the clock and over 2,000 yarn enterprises selling more than one million tons of yarn each year. Behind these numbers lies a complete supply chain loop—from yarn development, knitting and dyeing, to garment delivery—almost all achievable within one town. However, scale itself no longer constitutes a barrier. The catch-up of low-cost production bases in Southeast Asia and the domestic demand for quick response and personalization are forcing Dalan to redefine its competitiveness.
From order-taking to trend-defining
The event specially arranged a trend release session, deeply interpreting the key stitch techniques, colors, and detail applications for 27/28 knitwear, as well as sharing AI-assisted design and style prediction. For many Dalan factories accustomed to processing supplied samples, this holds more long-term value than simply taking orders—what yarn will be popular next year, which silhouettes will explode, and how AI design tools can be applied to actual development—these insights directly influence production investment. In the past, Dalan factories were executors in the supply chain; now, by front-loading trends and intervening in design, Dalan is trying to move up the value chain, shifting from passive response to active leadership. This shift means that buyers will find not just a pure OEM factory, but a partner capable of participating in planning and providing solutions.
Pet knitwear: new growth from a single yarn
On the runway, pet sweaters with exquisite stitching took turns appearing, as mature techniques such as coarse gauge, fine gauge, and jacquard were transferred to the pet apparel track. The pet economy continues to heat up, but most pet clothing remains in a low-quality, low-price stage. Dalan applies its high-end sweater craftsmanship to pet sweaters, essentially entering a new category with a dimensionality reduction strike. Behind this lies flexible reallocation of capacity—when traditional sweater demand fluctuates, pet knitwear provides a new order buffer for factories. For buyers, this means finding suppliers who understand craftsmanship and can respond quickly, rather than repeatedly comparing prices in the low-end market.
The deeper meaning of supply-demand matching
The 22 enterprises covered the complete chain from colored yarn, worsted wool, to finished garments, with face-to-face sampling and on-site negotiation driving samples toward bulk orders. This precise matching essentially presents Dalan's capacity, design, and flexible manufacturing capabilities directly to buyers in the Yangtze River Delta, breaking the inherent label of "origin OEM." Shanghai, as the core market window of the delta, attracts numerous brands, cross-border e-commerce buyers, and design firms. Dalan's proactive approach shortens the trust-building cycle between supply and demand. For factories, this means lower customer acquisition costs and faster order feedback; for buyers, it means bypassing intermediaries to lock in one-stop supply from yarn to garments.
The public path of industrial upgrading
The event was organized by the Dalan National Foreign Trade Transformation and Upgrading Base (Garment), part of regional industrial public services. In recent years, Dalan has relied on this platform to push the knitwear industry toward high-end, intelligent, and brand-oriented development. Trend releases, AI design tool sharing, and pet knitwear dynamic displays—these are not actions that a single enterprise can easily accomplish; they require resource integration at the base level. For small and medium factories, such public support lowers the threshold for capturing market trends; for the entire cluster, it is a unified external voice to strengthen the "Dalan Knitwear" regional brand in the minds of customers.