From fashion product industries to fashion: upgrading trends in traditional industry in Taiwan

ABSTRACT

In the 1990s, China opened its economic markets and replaced the New Institutional Economics (NIEs) of East Asia as the global centre for sourcing labour. This event changed the spatial and economic structure in Asia, especially in Taiwan. Based on the historical evolution of the textile and clothing industry in Taiwan, this study examined how traditional textile and apparel manufacturing was upgraded in Taipei, the capital of Taiwan, and in Tainan, the most historical city of Taiwan, under varying resource availability and under different city policies. While referring to both second-hand information and the literature, the results of interviews with fashion industry professionals were also considered. This study revealed that the potential to upgrade the fashion industry was highly associated with regional background characteristics. Additionally, lack of talent and the limited market for domestic brands create the largest bottleneck in the current fashion industry in Taiwan. Accordingly, the optimal solution for the fashion industry in Taiwan is to promote affordable Taiwanese brands and to use e-commerce. Such integration may enhance the position of the Taiwanese fashion industry in global networks.

KEYWORDS:

• Cultural product
• upgrading of traditional industry
• creative economy
• fashion industry
• textile and clothing industry

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the Ministry of Science and Technology in Taiwan for partially financial supporting this research under Contract No. MOST 102-2221-E-216-024- MY2. The authors are also grateful to the anonymous reviewers who provided useful comments on an earlier draft of the paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Taipei County became a municipality directly under the Central Government, which is the highest tier for a city in Taiwan. Thus, Taipei County was renamed New Taipei City by the Central Government on 25 December 2010. This study retains the term Taipei County to avoid confusion, since many of the research cited herein were written when this was the correct term.

2. The TTF has attempted to meet the needs of the textile industry, and has expanded its functions to market promotion, product design, fashion information analysis, online information, technology training, collection and analysis of market information, certification of functional textiles, publication of textile information, Certificate of Origin issuance and other textile-related services.

3. Before the 1980s, polices deterred citizens from dressing in unusual attire, including short shorts, miniskirts and (for men) wearing long hair while walking the streets.

4. The interview questions comprised five sections: (1) Please describe the developmental context of your company. (2) Can you explain your company's production system? For example, where do you source your resources from and where are products exported to? (3)What is the usual way that your company cooperates with fashion products production networks? (4) What industrial policies will improve the fashion product industry? and (5) What do these industries need to do to compete in East Asia?

5. The Industrial Economics & Knowledge Center of the Industrial Technology Research Institute is the organization that promotes Taiwan's industrial transformation via emerging industries, business development, government think tanks, technology dissemination, exploration of trends and improved strategic policies.

6. The solid line represents the formal contractual relationship, while the dotted line represents the established relationship; the thin line shows weak influence between different types of corporations, while the bold line indicates strong influence.

7. Shiztsy Chen, launched in 1978, is a typical Taiwanese designer brand. SingleNoble and Illori are typical examples of the transformation of the fashion industry. SingleNoble was among the earliest local brands and is a famous brand in Taiwan. The owner initially became involved in the fashion business via a wholesale market and started marketing products under their own brand in 1983. The company moved production to China in 2005 and created a sub-brand in 2007. SingleNoble has kept its design and marketing divisions in Taiwan. Illori was originally an old apparel factory that supplied fabric and clothing to Levi's, UNIQLO, MUJI, Crocodile, Adidas, IZOD, HEAD, Titlist, Descente, Lecoqsportif, Alfred Dunner and OceanPacific. To grow its partnerships and opportunities for cooperation, illori left Taiwan for China in 2002, and ceased its collaborative relationships. The business owners then created their own brand. In 2006, the company started to manufacture clothing on an OBM basis under the Prodyna and illori labels and marketed it worldwide.

8. Interviews with fashion professionals revealed that the Tainan and Taipei textile industries have different structure, and therefore variables in Tables 2 and 3 are different. The Tainan textile industries have been ‘clothing OEM' manufacturers for a long time. Additionally, almost all interviewees were managers or had second- and third-generation family business, and seldom has design department. In contrast, Taipei has many retail design brands, individual design studios, and well-known brand flagship stores. This demonstrates that Taiwanese fashion textile industry has a situation of division of work between Southern and northern Taiwan.