Contest spurs innovation

Established in 2006, the Zhang Jian Cup has helped Nantong’s home textiles design sector evolve, Hao Nan, Shen Xuemei and Li Tong report.

More than 500 home textile products were entered into this year’s Zhang Jian Cup, also known as the China International Home Textiles Design Competition, in Nantong from July 18 to 19.

Companies, universities and individuals from 13 countries and regions including France, Holland, Hong Kong and the United States entered the competition. A panel of 17 Chinese and foreign experts, entrepreneurs and industrial insiders awarded the first-place prize to three products.

“The overall quality of this year’s entries is better than last year’s, with more products showing a good combination of new technology and traditional craftsmanship,” said Wang Qingzhen, one of the judges and a professor with the department of textile and fashion design at the Luxun Academy of Fine Arts in Shenyang, Liaoning province.

A woman shops for blankets at a textile market in Nantong, Jiangsu province. XINHUA

“Some products also exhibited strong local features, which was very attractive,” Wang said.

Immacolata D’ercole, the only foreign judge and a senior designer at Italy’s Constantine Design Group Inc, said Chinese elements were popular in international designs and she hoped to see more internationalized Chinese home textile products in the future.

This year’s competition also awarded, for the first time, prizes for the best products by e-commerce textile companies. Tmall, a major Chinese business-to-consumer shopping portal owned by Alibaba Group Holding Ltd was a key sponsor.

“It was a new breakthrough and also in line with the development of the e-commerce industry,” said Yang Zhaohua, director of the event’s organizing committee.

The Zhang Jian Cup home textile competition has been held since 2006 and is currently China’s largest and highest-level competition in the industry.

It is named after Zhang Jian, a local entrepreneur and educator who founded the modern textile and apparel industry in Nantong, East China’s Jiangsu province.

Mainly organized by the China Home Textile Association and the Nantong government, the annual contest has played an important role in developing Nantong’s home textile industry.

“We have continued to make new innovations in the industry and the competition has nurtured a large number of outstanding designers over the past decade. Made-in-Nantong home textile products are now being exported to many countries and regions across the world,” said Wang Guoping, deputy secretary-general of the city government.

An international home textile market in Nantong. XINHUA

Nantong’s home textile industry began making strides in 2005, although most of the city’s textile companies did not have dedicated designers and mostly copied products from large European and Chinese companies.

To encourage original designs and raise more awareness of copyrights, the city government organized the competition. It soon attracted a great deal of attention from designers and companies in the industry.

Jiangsu Goldsun Textile Science and Technology, for example, began with only a handful of designers and few recognizable product styles. The fabric supplier is now an industrial design center with eight research institutes and over 400 employees.

Two large textile markets in the city, Dieshiqiao and Zhihao, have established copyright protection offices to help local companies and solve copyright disputes.

Nantong is at the forefront of China’s home textile sector. It is home to more than 8,000 manufacturers and sellers, with about 200,000 employees and a combined annual sales revenue of over 60 billion yuan ($9.66 billion).

Contact the writers through haonan@chinadaily.com.cn