It might not be the first time you've heard of Hanfu (汉服). This kind of traditional Chinese costume has been discussed by media around the world frequently. More and more Hanfu events are being held, and more and more people are trying to wear traditional costumes. When browsing social media, you can often see beautiful pictures of Hanfu dresses. Even many people have incorporated them into their daily life.
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- What types of groups are fancy in Hanfu?
- What are their original intentions of buying and wearing Hanfu?
- What attractiveness does Hanfu suit have?
- and more…
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This new report will introduce to you the current environment of Hanfu in several aspects.
Hanfu lovers taking photos in the Forbidden City of Beijing.
I. The Overall Situation of Hanfu
Rapid Development of Hanfu Industry
The revival of Hanfu culture began in 2003. An electric worker named Wang Letian walked with Hanfu on the street to promote it. This was the first person who wear Hanfu in the public.
Currently, there are more than 1300 Hanfu cultural associations in the world in 2017, and there are more than 2000 in 2019, an increase of 46% can be seen in these two years. In China, there are more than 2 million consumers in the Hanfu market, with a total industrial scale of about 1.09 billion yuan (about 150 million US dollars). Orders for individual brands of Chinese clothing have been booked to 2021.
At that time, the newspaper reported about Wang Letian and his hanfu
Technology Platform and Media Fuel the Wave
In recent years, with the popularity of online shopping and the spread of media, wearing Hanfu clothing has become a new trend among some young people. “The Story Of Ming Lan”, “Nirvana in Fire”, “The Longest Day In Chang'an” and other ancient costume films and TV dramas occupy the hit list. Hanfu appears more and more frequently in people's eyes. With the help of social media, the Hanfu industry is expanding rapidly.
Complete Industrial Chain
Hanfu industry is a new economic growth point of the traditional cultural industry, but it has already existed and developed into a perfect industrial chain. From cloth transportation, tailoring design, processing, and production, to finished goods transportation, publicity and sales, the entire industrial chain has been fully developed. Machine manufacturing and modern transportation have also matured in the past decades. The addition of these two new elements has transformed the original slow work and fine work Hanfu industry into a brand-new industry.
More Young Consumers
10 years ago, if you wanted to wear Hanfu as regular clothes, most of them would be labeled as weird fashion. So many years later, there are hundreds of cultural events about Hanfu held every year all over the world. Chengdu, China, has a famous “Hanfu Street”. In 2018, the number of people buying Chinese clothes increased by 92% year-on-year, with post-95 (young people aged 20-25 years) becoming the main force, accounting for 48%.
“Recently, the developments of Hanfu among young people are progressing rapidly. Young people are more enthusiastic, positive, hardworking and influential. The developments of anything are energetic only when young people participate in it.”
—— Bao Huaimin, Director of Fashion Department, Academy of Fine Arts, Jinan University
II. Basic Situation of Hanfu Fans
In this part, in order to help you further understand Hanfu, we conducted a large number of questionnaires and collected 3740 valid data, and we will cross-elaborate and analyze the sex ratios, age and number of Hanfu wearers, the channels of getting Hanfu, the ways to know and learn Hanfu, length of time to wear Hanfu, the attitudes of current wearers on different styles and whether people are willing to wear Hanfu to on the street or not.
Age of Hanfu Fans
The average age of Chinese costume enthusiasts is 21.03 years old, which is slightly lower than last year. There are 1001 people aged 16-18, accounting for 26.76% of the total, which is also higher than last year; 1950 people aged 19-24, accounting for 52.14% of the total, which is lower than last year; other age groups account for 21.1%. It shows that young people account for a large proportion. See the figure below for details.
The Number of Hanfu You Own
Question: How many sets of Hanfu do you have?
As shown in the figure below, 4.31% of the respondents chose none, only 9.58% had one set of Hanfu, 35.63% had two or four sets of Hanfu, 31.41% had five or ten sets of Hanfu and 19.07% had more than three or four sets of Hanfu. This shows that the possession rate and possession degree of Hanfu in the same gown is very high. It is not uncommon to have three or four sets of Hanfu. More than half of them have more than five sets of Hanfu, and the number is still growing.
In the segmented data of different genders, as shown in the figure below, the rate of male absence is 9.42%, the rate of one suit is 15.2%, the rate of two to four suits is 37.39%, which is higher than that of female. In the five to ten items and more, the proportion of female ownership is significantly higher than that of male. The total number of Hanfu owned by female is 5.59, which is higher than that of male 4.44 suits.
The Channels of Getting Hanfu
Question: How did you get your Chinese clothes?
As shown in the figure below, the purchase ratio from Hanfu merchants is the highest, up to 93.32%; secondly, they look for tailors themselves, which is 3.6%; thirdly, they do it by themselves, which is 2.37%; fourthly, others give it as gifts, which is 0.7%; thus, buying from the merchants is the most important and convenient way for people to obtain Hanfu.
In terms of gender, 94.3% of women buy from merchants, which is significantly higher than 87.54% of men, while the other items are higher than that of women. It is interesting to note that women are more interested in buying from merchants than men and that more men are willing to do it themselves or find tailors to do it. This may be due to the small number of male samples.
A strange phenomenon is that with the growth of income, the proportion of purchases from businesses is declining, while the proportion of tailors and their own production is increasing, as shown in the figure below.
Some artists with strong handicraft ability and a strong sense of design buy the raw materials for making accessories themselves, design and process them in their spare time to make hair ornaments, handbags and other peripheral small things.
Sex Ratios
We found that the proportion of female Hanfu wearers increased from 60.61% in 2014 to 71.9% in 2015, 77.83% in 2016, 89.2% in 2017 and 88.21% in 2018. This shows that the proportion of women's gowns in the same gowns is still increasing, and the proportion of men's and women's gowns is close to one to nine.
Major Channels to Know Hanfu
This topic is with multi-choice questions, the survey shows that the network is the most important way to get information of Chinese clothes, accounting for 74.49% of the total, which is consistent with last year, and continues to rank first; the second is through friends which stands around 33.48%, through traditional media 27.17%, and other categories 20.99%.
From this, we can see that this year's situation is the same as last year's. The Internet is still the main channel for people to learn and understand Chinese clothes. Secondly, it becomes a new comrade through the introduction of friends. Traditional media is the third driving force for the promotion of Chinese clothes.
Length of Time to Wear Hanfu
The results showed that 860 people who had not been worn Hanfu for one year accounted for 22.99% of the total, up from last year; 1,827 people in one to three years accounted for 48.85% of the total, slightly lower than last year, the former two accounted for 71.84% of the total; 28.16% of them wear it for more than three years. The proportion of new contacts and people who like Hanfu is increasing
This year's situation is similar to that of last year, with little change. The proportion in less than one year has continued to increase, indicating that the number of new recruits has also increased in the same proportion and the number of new recruits has increased considerably in this year.
“If you ask me the time when I began to like Chinese costumes, it's hard to trace back. I've always been fond of ancient costume stories since I was a child. Although at that time I had no systematic understanding of Hanfu. It's almost seven years since i started buying Hanfu.Not counting the purchase of accessories, shoes and so on, it is estimated that it costs me 80,000 to 90,000 yuan to buy Chinese clothes, about 40 to 50 sets, the most expensive one costs tens of thousands, and the cheapest one is about several hundred yuan.”
—— Qingqing, a Hanfu enthusiast.
Attitudes towards Style Development
Among the options for future style development, see the figure below, in which the choice is 4.52% in accordance with the ancient system, and continues to decline. Maintain the basic form unchanged, but more beautiful is 62.06%, the decline is obvious, which shows that most of fans follow the Hanfu form inheritance, but also hope that the Han clothes can be combined with contemporary society, to show his modern beauty.
Whether to Wear Hanfu on the Street
The results showed that 53.29% of the respondents had the courage to wear Hanfu in public, up from last year, and the longer they wear Hanfu, the younger they were. Secondly, 40.45% of the people had to decide whether to wear Hanfu on the street depends on different situations. While only 2.09% of the people who did not have the courage to wear Hanfu continued to decline; the others were 4.17%. This shows that with the continuous in-depth and continuous publicity of Hanfu, more and more people dare to wear Hanfu openly.
III. Hanfu Merchants
Offline Business Data
On December 17, 2006, “Return to the Han and Tang Dynasties” brand Hanfu store opened in Chengdu, Sichuan, which is the first brand Hanfu entity store in China. Hanfu Entity Experience Store can be divided into Hanfu Entity Store and Experience Store.
Entity shop refers to the shop that mainly sells Hanfu, also deals in leasing, accessories, photography, etiquette, culture and other contents. Experience shop generally refers to the shop that mainly sells Hanfu photography.
With the dramatic increase in the number of Hanfu enthusiasts and the doubling of the Hanfu market, the number of offline physical stores and experience halls has doubled, and the number of new Hanfu physical experience stores has mushroomed. The number of Han clothing stores and experience halls collected has increased from 129 last year to 458 at present, 3.55 times as much as last year.
Statistics show that the number of merchants with 2 or more chain stores has reached 20, of which the largest number of chain stores is back to the Han and Tang Dynasties, with 28 chain stores.
At the same time, due to the rise of Hanfu, the surrounding industries of Hanfu have also been greatly affected by this. From accessories around Hanfu to Hanfu rental and travel photography, the industry is booming. For the vast majority of consumers who buy Chinese clothes, they will also choose to buy accessories, such as hair accessories, shoes, fans and so on.
Online Sales Scale Analysis
Monthly Sales
The following table shows the monthly sales, number of brands, average price and number of Hanfu online stores in 2018. Among them, the total sales volume of Han clothing in 2018 was 921 million yuan (about $120 million US dollars).
| Month | Sales($) | Brands | Average Price($) | Stores |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 0.32 | 4,290 | 125 | 21,000 |
| February | 0.47 | 5,050 | 120 | 27,000 |
| March | 0.65 | 5,310 | 121 | 25,000 |
| April | 0.88 | 6,380 | 115 | 31,000 |
| May | 0.85 | 7,140 | 109 | 36,000 |
| June | 0.67 | 6,970 | 113 | 35,000 |
| July | 0.59 | 6,170 | 127 | 29,000 |
| August | 0.63 | 7,500 | 128 | 35,000 |
| September | 0.97 | 8,170 | 126 | 33,000 |
| October | 0.99 | 7,820 | 130 | 32,000 |
| November | 1.15 | 10,310 | 129 | 29,000 |
| December | 1.04 | 8,270 | 124 | 25,000 |
In April, the sales of Hanfu were higher, probably because it was a good time for Hanfu enthusiasts to wear Hanfu and have spring outings. The higher sales in November are related to the marketing activities of the platform and the month when the festivals related to Hanfu are held.
Price Analysis
From the point of the price distribution, the sales volume of Hanfu with the price lower than 200 Yuan is the highest, accounting for 67.6% of the total sales volume, followed by the 200-400 Yuan. This shows that ordinary consumers have a low price orientation for Hanfu, and quality and professionalism are not the core needs of consumer groups.
| Price(￥) | Sales Amount(￥) |
|---|---|
| Less than 200 | 622958000 |
| 200~400 | 219603800 |
| 400~600 | 30172240 |
| 600~800 | 21086670 |
| 800~1000 | 10316340 |
| 1000~1500 | 10114560 |
| 1500~2000 | 4178313 |
| More than 2000 | 3029298 |
From the sales model, unlike Western-style tailoring of modern clothing, Hanfu has higher requirements for workmanship, tailoring, raw materials, and so on. Because most Hanfu needs embroidery, so Hanfu production needs more technology and time. Due to the long production period, slow repayment period and the particularity of customized products.
Many Hanfu merchants choose the “reservation” system. In the process of purchase, consumers pay a part of the deposit first and agree on the time to pay the tail money and deliver the goods. In the process, if the consumer pays the deposit, it means that the consumer can not choose to refund without reason except for the quality problem.
Business Category Analysis
According to the data, among all the Hanfu merchants, 75.95% of the total are women's clothes，men and women mixed accounted for 21.35% of the total, and most of them were women's clothes. Only 1.35% of the total number of men's clothes are mainly men's clothes or exclusive men's clothes, children's clothing is 0.98%, wedding clothes were 0.37%.
Style Analysis
Sales volume Top 10 style as follows:
| Style | Sales Volume | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Runqun (襦裙) | 3225910 |
| 2 | Aoqun (袄裙) | 561099 |
| 3 | Big sleeve shirt (大袖衫) | 429840 |
| 4 | Quju (曲裾) | 334453 |
| 5 | Beizi (褙子) | 230648 |
| 6 | Dress (下裙) | 165062 |
| 7 | Cloak (披风) | 123313 |
| 8 | Tan collar top (坦领) | 50407 |
| 9 | Bijia (比甲) | 22906 |
| 10 | Square-neck top (方领) | 22271 |
All Products
The whole Hanfu product includes the main body and its surroundings. In all the products sold by Hanfu merchants, the sales volume of the main body product is about 4.53 times that of the surrounding products, but the output value of the main body product is about 18.6 times that of the surrounding products.
Men's clothing accounted for 7.25% of the total sales of the main finished products, women's clothing accounted for 85.85% of the total sales of the main finished products, and neutral clothing accounted for 6.9% of the total sales of the main finished products.
Top 3 Hot Sale Products
- Stand collar Aoqun suit: Peace and Auspiciousness (太平有象).
2. Printed short Aoqun suit: Oriental Dream (东方一梦).
3. Printed cross collar Aoqun suit: Florescence (花期).
VI. Records of Events of Hanfu
The 6th Xitang Hanfu Culture Week
From October 26 to 31, 2018, the 6th Xitang Hanfu Culture Week opened with the presence of Mr. Fang Wenshan and Ms. Xu Jiao. There are Chinese costume square array carnival, etiquette exhibition and other activities, which are the large-scale presentation of Chinese traditional costume and etiquette culture.
Hanfu in New York's Times Square
Sept. 10, 2018, Huashang Jiuzhou union six major Hanfu element brands, appear at New York Fashion Week, and jointly board the Reuters screen in Times Square, New York, to show the beauty of Hanfu.
V. Summary
Hanfu is the traditional costume of the Han nationality for thousands of years. It not only contains the outstanding craft and aesthetics such as dyeing, weaving, and embroidery of the Han nationality, but also is an important carrier of traditional culture and national spirit. It is also one of the important external manifestations of the aesthetic taste and customs of the Chinese nation. We can still see that today's Hanfu market is a fast-growing market.
At the same time, with the deepening of the promotion of Hanfu, the continuous expansion of the industrial scale and the younger consumer groups, it is bound to have a far-reaching impact on the future apparel field. It is hoped that in the near future, more people will pay attention to and recognize the culture of Hanfu. Everyone can not only have a set of Chinese traditional clothes he/she likes, but also understand the cultural connotation behind them.