Shanghai Trade Fair Trip

With a total of 4553 exhibitors from 29 countries and 74,000 visitors from 90 countries around the world, covered in a 260,000 square meters of space in the National (Shanghai) Center for Exhibition and Convention, it is definitely a massive market for traders, buyers and professionals in the apparel industry.

During this trip, we have also visited museums, markets, cultural sites and fashion center. The day before we went to the Intertextile, we had the chance to visit Condé Nast Center of Fashion and Design, a professional fashion/design center established by Condé Nast, one of the biggest publishers in the world that publishes world renowned magazines such as Vogue, GQ, W, Allure, Glamour, Vanity Fair, etc. The executive director, Domonique Simard, had warmly greeted us and took us for a campus tour, then did an exclusive presentation to us about their establishments and the China fashion scene.

The day after, we went to visit Suzhou Harmony Textile and Crafts Co., a company that specializes in producing handmade Kesi silk tapestry weaving located in Suzhou city. Kesi, or Cut Silk, refers to silk tapestry with cut designs and is a unique Chinese traditional silk weaving technique. A tradition which dates back 3,000 years ago. Kesi uses raw silk as warp yarn, and boiled-off silk as weft yarn. It weaves in blocks according to the outline of the pattern using a bamboo leaf shaped shuttle and wooden comb shaped plectrum. When the outline (weft) meets the perpendicular (warp), the filaments appear to have been scored as if carved by a sharp knife. This technique is known as Continuous Warp and Discontinuous Weft, therefore named Cut Silk (Kesi).