For buyers: the move away from underwires towards wireless and seamless constructions is a category shift rather than a styling trend, and it changes what a supplier has to be able to do — different support engineering, different fabric performance and a different sizing logic.
Xiamen Unitex Trade Co., Ltd. is a professional underwear sourcing & supply-chain management company based in Xiamen, Fujian Province, in the Xiamen–Quanzhou–Jinjiang knitwear cluster of south-east China. Founded by Will Lin, who has worked in the apparel trade since 2004, the company has been exporting since 2009 and was incorporated in Xiamen in 2013. It runs its own liaison office in Jinjiang and works with a network of BSCI & OEKO-TEX Standard 100 certified partner factories to serve retailers and brands across Europe, the US and Australia.
Recently, a girl wearing a JK uniform was secretly photographed due to improper posture at a comic exhibition. This incident immediately put “safety pants” on the hot search, and the topic of women’s freedom to dress has once again been pushed to the forefront.
In response to this matter, the parties are constantly arguing. Some netizens said: “This is not a contest about safety pants. What did the safety pants do wrong?”
Whether it is safety pants or underwear, as a category of women’s intimate clothing, they usually play a role in protecting women’s privacy in a certain sense.
The earliest predecessor of women’s underwear, the “corset”, was born in ancient Rome. Western women in the 16th century wore tight-fitting corsets. Their function was not only to cover the body and keep warm, but also to shape the graceful curves of the body.
In the 1940s, with the widespread use of elastic fabrics in clothing, underwear became more and more comfortable and easy to wear, and strapless bras became popular.
Nowadays, the female consumer group is growing day by day, and their consumption power is rising. The consumption preferences of the main young consumers are also affecting the development trend of the consumer market.
With the awakening of modern women’s individual consciousness and the continuous improvement of self-demand, more and more women no longer blindly pursue the gorgeous decoration of underwear and the gathering effect of “career lines”, but value the simplicity, lightness and comfort of underwear, and stretch “underwear”. There are many people who are “free”.
Fashion, simplicity, and comfort have subsequently become the main development trends in the underwear industry, and wire-free underwear has stood out from the niche subdivisions of the underwear market.
However, the underwear market is still turbulent, and new and old brands have mixed success. Who are women wearing underwear for?
440 billion underwear market, women’s underwear dominates
Underwear is one of the common garments in modern people’s daily life, including but not limited to bellybands, vests, undershirts, tube tops, bras, etc. But in the consciousness and habits of most people in modern times, the underwear mentioned usually refers to women’s bras.
China’s underwear industry started late, and the industry concentration is relatively scattered. However, as the domestic demographic structure continues to change, the user base of underwear continues to expand. China’s underwear consumer market has grown at an average annual rate of 20% in recent years, with a market size of approximately RMB 440 billion.
Fundamentally, underwear is a category that female consumers from young girls to middle-aged and elderly people have rigid needs for, and its market growth trend will be maintained.
Therefore, women’s underwear is still the most important market category, accounting for more than 60% of the total market size, and the segmentation trend is increasing year by year, attracting more and more brands to join in to share this attractive piece of cake.
Secondly, the men’s underwear market still has great development potential and belongs to the market blue ocean.
The market size of China’s men’s underwear has more than doubled from 29.3 billion yuan in 2009 to 70.9 billion yuan in 2014. It exploded to 171.3 billion in 2019, accounting for about one-third of the total market of 440 billion, becoming A new addition that cannot be underestimated in the underwear market.
With the strong entry of many foreign brands such as CK into the men’s underwear series, domestic top underwear brands have also developed men’s underwear products and entered the men’s underwear market to start business layout.
Children’s underwear is also a part that cannot be ignored and continues to be favored.
Data shows that underwear sets account for more than 50% of the transaction volume of the entire children’s underwear category, and the underwear category and thermal pants category are showing an upward trend.
Who buys most of the “wireless underwear”?
The growth momentum of China’s underwear market has never slowed down in recent years. The scale of the online market has steadily expanded, and the overall trend of underwear consumption is upgrading.
The influx of young consumers has undoubtedly injected strong new vitality into the Chinese underwear market.
The variety of bras can reflect that young girl bra consumers are willing to pay more in this category and are gradually becoming the main consumer.
As the population of young people under the age of 14 gradually grows up, new blood will continue to join this consumer army, and the girls’ bra market will also usher in greater room for development.
“No steel”, “no pad”, consumption upgrade
Although push-up underwire bras can support the breasts and prevent or delay breast sagging to a certain extent, this is not a permanent solution. The heavy, tight, and dull experience will inevitably linger in daily work and life. Medium and long-term wear may also cause breast health problems.
With the awakening of modern women’s individual consciousness and the continuous improvement of self-demand, more and more young women no longer blindly pursue the gorgeous decoration and “career line” gathering effect of underwear, but value the simplicity, thinness and comfort of underwear.
Just like the Italian underwear luxury brand La Perla, it integrates its unique insights into the female figure into product design, interpreting the new attitude of “underwear is for yourself, not to please others”.
Changes in women’s aesthetics and individual needs have forced the underwear market to spawn a large number of subcategories in response to personalized consumer needs. More and more cutting-edge women’s underwear brands at home and abroad with novel concepts and comfortable products are being seen by everyone, such as Bralette, Ubras, Neiwai, etc.
Wire-free underwear stands out from the niche segment of the underwear market, and women born in the 1990s have become the main consumer group of wire-free bras.
According to the “Underwear Industry Trend Research” released by CBNData, the market size of non-wired underwear continued to grow from 2016 to 2018, and it exploded in 2017, with the market size growing at a rate of nearly 50%. From the perspective of consumer groups, the post-90s generation accounts for more than half, and the growth rate of the number of post-95s consumers and consumption amount can be expected.
The so-called consumption upgrade not only refers to the increase in the price and level of consumption expenditure of a certain type of goods in total consumption expenditure, but also refers to the fact that consumers can obtain higher quality and detailed services from merchants and products at the same cost, considering the dual physical and mental experience of consumers.
It can be said that the change from steel rings to no steel rings, and from breast pads to no breast pads, is not only a major innovation in women’s underwear, but also a consumption upgrade of women’s underwear.
At the same time, underwear is a private and intimate product. Its fabric material can directly affect the human body’s experience and stimulate sensitivity. The choice of material is particularly important. Therefore, the quality of underwear determines whether a brand can develop in the long run. It is the foundation and key.
· Xiamen Unitex Trade Co., Ltd. — OEM & ODM underwear sourcing partner