In recent years, the fabric products that have attracted the most attention on the market and have a relatively guaranteed order volume are probably elastic products. Even though this year has been deeply affected by the epidemic, if orders for printing and dyeing factories pick up slightly, elastic fabrics will be indispensable. Modern people’s pursuit of comfortable and convenient clothing has made elastic fabrics more and more widely used. Elastic fabrics have appeared in leggings, swimwear, T-shirts, jackets, and even down jackets.
Elastic fabrics have received major attention from the market, which has also pushed this type of fabrics into the fast lane of development. Various elastic fabrics are competing to appear on the market, and at the same time, they are constantly developing in competition and elimination.
Four-sided elastic is in short supply, with large orders and high profits
In fact, when it comes to stretch fabrics, textile The first thing people usually think of is four-way stretch fabrics. It can be said that four-sided elastic has brought most textile people into the field of elastic fabrics.
Four or five years ago, four-way elastic fabrics first appeared in the market. At that time, the number of companies in the entire weaving market that could produce such products was quite limited, and there were also printing and dyeing factories that could process such fabrics. It’s even rarer. But the orders from end clothing customers are endless.
“In 2015 and 2016, the order volume for four-sided bullets was particularly large. We only ordered ordinary 75D twill four-sided bullets for whitening. In the second half of the year, any order would be between seventy and eighty percent. The quantity is 10,000 meters. Not only the order volume is large, but the profit is also good. It is not a big problem to earn 2-3 yuan per meter of fabric.” A stretch fabric trader said, “But there were few weaving factories at that time, and they could get it in the market. There are only a few suppliers, and our quantity can basically be contracted to factories. However, due to the limited number of dyeing factories, all the four-sided fabrics are concentrated in one or two factories, so it is still difficult to place orders.”
The popularity of four-sided bullets a few years ago can be seen, and the entire market was in short supply. But this state did not last long, and spandex fabrics seemed to be abandoned by the market in an instant. Just from the price changes, we can see that the prices of 50D and 75D four-sided bullets were above 4 yuan/meter and 5 yuan/meter a few years ago, but this year they have dropped to more than 2 yuan/meter, and some sales can even The price is less than 1.5 yuan/meter.
Of course, this situation occurs, on the one hand, because the price of the entire upstream raw materials has dropped, but on the other hand, the emergence of new elastic fabrics, gradually replacing the four-way elastic type is also an important reason.
Spandex fabrics have lost ground, and T400 is the dominant one
Because the elasticity of four-way stretch fabrics mainly comes from the spandex yarn inside the yarn count. However, this type of fabric has several obvious shortcomings. First, the spandex yarn is fragile and easy to break. During the storage of gray fabrics, printing and dyeing processing, and the wearing and washing of ready-made clothes, the spandex yarn is easily damaged and broken, resulting in fabrics and clothing losing their elasticity and being scrapped. . On the other hand, spandex silk cannot be colored during the printing and dyeing process, resulting in low color fastness of this type of elastic fabric, generally not exceeding level 3, and darker colors even lower.
The shortcomings of spandex elastic fabrics are unacceptable to some brand clothing companies, and after years of development, the prices of such elastic fabrics with simple processes have become increasingly cheaper, and lower fabrics The price cannot support the value of mid-to-high-end clothing. The market needs fabrics with superior quality and higher added value to replace four-way stretch fabrics.
T400 fabrics emerged, a new type of fabric that does not contain spandex but has good elasticity. It solves many problems such as difficulty in dyeing of spandex, excess elasticity, complicated weaving, unstable fabric size and aging of spandex during use. Once launched, T400 fabrics quickly gained market recognition and began to “kill all parties” in the market.
Whether the printing and dyeing factories will be crowded or busy in the second half of 2019 depends almost entirely on the amount of T400 fabrics entering the warehouse. Warehousing volume of hundreds of thousands of meters can be seen everywhere, and it is not uncommon to have more than one million meters. It seems that in this textile market, only T400 products are worthy of attention. Printing and dyeing factories are also actively cooperating, and all types of production capacity are tilted towards T400. There are even some dyeing factories that mobilize 90 dyeing factories to produce more than 180 cylinders of T400 fabrics in one night.
The hot market for four-way elastic has not disappeared, but has just transferred to T400 fabrics. So how long can the market for T400 fabrics last?
T8 fabric was born, officially challenging T400
The T400 fabric, which is highly sought after by the market, is not absolutely perfect. The scarcity of raw materials, competition in supply, and high price have made many clothing companies shun it. However, the demand for elastic fabrics in the clothing market is growing day by day. Obviously, the various shortcomings of T400 have seriously restricted the development of elastic fabrics.
An improved elastic fabric T8 began to quietly emerge on the market. This kind of fabric has similar quality to T400 fabric. It has better elasticity than T400. The fabric has a little wrinkle feeling, which is more unique than T400. It also has the function of moisture absorption and perspiration. More importantly, the price is much lower than T400. Comparing two twill fabrics with a weight of about 145 grams/square meter, the price of T400 gray fabric is about 9.7 yuan/meter, while the price of T8 is about 6.3 yuan/meter.��, the difference between the two is about 3.4 yuan/meter.
This price advantage is huge. Normally, we should quickly seize the T400 market and eliminate T400 fabrics. However, in fact, the market share of T8 fabrics is still quite limited. This situation occurs mainly because T8 fabric has just been released, and the printing, dyeing and finishing processes are not yet perfect, especially the shrinkage problem is still unstable.
It is a normal phenomenon that the printing, dyeing and finishing of new fabrics lag behind the fabrics. The original four-sided elastic, imitation memory, and T400 all had this process. Therefore, it is understandable and expected that T8 printing and dyeing is immature. If the technology matures over time, T8 fabrics will inevitably appear in the textile market with a brand new image.
From four-way stretch to T400 and then to T8, the stretch fabric market has changed dramatically in just a few years, and a hundred flowers are blooming! As a focus of the textile market, the elastic fabric market must have high hopes. Only continuous upgrading can meet the growing market demand. At the same time, it also reminds us that textile workers must not be complacent just because they are leading in a certain field. Overtaking in corners is becoming more and more common, and leading and falling behind can change at any time. </p
