From manufacturing city to fashion future: Changshu pioneers China's first “Tech is Touch” revolution

China's Suzhou is widely known as the Silk City or, as the old saying goes, the Garden of Shanghai. However, in recent years, things have been changing in Changshu, which stands as one of the most recognized and important fashion industry manufacturing areas in Suzhou.

During this season's high-profile fashion week period, a powerful new event, Suzhou Tech Fashion Week (STFW), captured the attention of the fashion industry from October 9 to 16. At the inaugural event, thousands of fashion and textile experts from around the world converged on Changshu, resulting in dozens of domestic and international business deals, and garnering significant media praise.

Positioning itself as China's first fashion event that explicitly focuses on “Fashion with Technology”, STFW has ushered in a fashion revolution under the powerful theme: “Technology is Touchable, Fashion is Applicable.”

The initiative is strategic as it not only leverages Changshu's strong and established local industrial chains, but also strongly advocates a new trend: fostering an innovative consumer atmosphere driven by new technologies. The event will become a vital platform where future design meets manufacturing prowess.

At this moment in history, the global textile industry is undergoing a triple transformation that encompasses technology, ecological development and consumption. At the same time, China's “dual circulation” strategy is promoting improvements in domestic demand and self-sufficiency in the industrial supply chain.

“As a traditional textile powerhouse, Changshu is at a critical juncture, trying to 'transform from a major manufacturing city to a major fashion city'. This requires both consolidating the advantage of its comprehensive supply chain and breaking through bottlenecks in high-end design and core technology to find new growth drivers,” said a local Changshu official. “Currently, we are using an 'Outdoor Sports Plus' strategy, focusing on outdoor sportswear (mainly functional jackets) as the second pillar of its innovation and industrial development. The goal is to build a new high ground for the outdoor sportswear industry with national influence.”

Under the guidance of these government strategies and development initiatives, numerous companies have flourished and established themselves as pioneers in various specialized fields. Among them, a quintessential representative of Changshu's success is Bosideng, which recently made its last presentation at Paris Fashion Week.

In the fertile terrain of Changshu's textile and clothing industry, Bosideng is both a witness to the development of the industry and an important participant and driver. Bosideng is deeply rooted in building the regional brand 'Fashion Changshu', which grows together with the local industry. It acts as a “chain leading enterprise”, driving the transformation and upgrading of Changshu textile and garment group towards green, intelligent and high-end manufacturing.

After dominating the market and sales in China for more than three decades, Bosideng has transformed into a global fashion giant. Today, the company is among the top 500 most influential brands in the world and among the top 500 companies in China. It has a brand value of 118.058 million yuan and has maintained its position in the exclusive 100.058 million yuan brand club for two consecutive years.

“The smart manufacturing base we invested and built in has stimulated the local area to establish more than 300 smart production lines and workshops, providing strong support for Changshu to build a high-quality development demonstration zone for the high-end textile industry of Jiangsu Province. It can be said that Bosideng is not only a 'growth model' for Changshu's industry, but also a vibrant representation of 'Changshu Fashion' on the global stage,” said an official. brand spokesperson.

In September 2025, Bosideng launched its Expedition 3-in-1 packable jacket, which features the world's first GORE-TEX® stretch fabric and self-developed innovative temperature control technology. It was a revolutionary innovation with “one garment, three ways to wear it and that allows a temperature difference of 20 °C to be easily managed.” Additionally, the 'Master Puffs' collection, which launched in October during Paris Fashion Week, used airy, fluffy fabrics and an architectural design aesthetic. This was a revolutionary improvement in both lightweight performance (reducing fabric weight by 70%) and thermal insulation, demonstrating the Chinese brand's innovative strength to the global fashion community.

In addition to local brands' commitment to R&D in the technology sector, Changshu is experiencing a vibrant resurgence through the burgeoning fields of cross-border e-commerce and livestreaming commerce.

Furthermore, Changshu Garment City stands as one of the largest professional textile and apparel markets in China, generating an annual transaction volume exceeding 150 billion yuan. Attracting over 40,000 market entities and employing over 100,000 people, including nearly 50,000 live streaming trading professionals, this dynamic area has successfully established a booming market landscape known for its “100 billion dual online and offline” transactions.

In recent years, Changshu textile and clothing enterprises have actively globalized. They are moving from a traditional “OEM export” model to a new stage of overseas independent brand expansion with a global supply chain design. An increasing number of small and medium-sized enterprises are adopting a “co-internationalization” model to share foreign market resources and channels.

Looking ahead, a new development path for these companies involves establishing overseas production capacity in Southeast Asia (such as Vietnam and Cambodia). By using local labor cost advantages to establish garment production bases, its products can effectively extend to markets in ASEAN, Australia and beyond.

by Sissi Chu