Antai Textile: 12 Years of Trend Analysis + Innovative Technology Make Colored Acrylic Top a Hot Commodity in Sun-Protective Fabrics

The early morning sunlight filters through the high windows of the production workshop at Zhangjiagang Antai Textile, casting dappled light and shadows on the neatly arranged spinning machines. Factory Director Huang from the Production Department is bending over to inspect a newly produced roll of colored acrylic top, his fingertips gliding over the indigo fiber bundles – this is a rush order received last week from a sun-protective clothing fabric supplier, requiring color fastness of grade 4 or above and certain anti-ultraviolet properties. "Manager Li, the color shade and strength of this batch of 300 tons of peacock blue acrylic top are stable, even better than the laboratory data," he straightens up and waves the test report in his hand at Li Xiong, the Marketing Department Manager who is hurrying over.

Li Xiong is clutching a stack of freshly printed industry data, with a thin layer of sweat on his forehead from rushing over. "Factory Director Huang, look at this," he hands over the June data sheet from the National Bureau of Statistics. "National yarn output was 2.065 million tons, a year-on-year increase of 4.9%, and chemical fiber output was 7.364 million tons, up 4.7%. The downstream customers of our acrylic yarn have been calling frantically to urge orders recently, especially those making spring and summer clothing, all saying 'not enough yarn'." He pauses, pointing his finger at another document, "And this, the sun-protective clothing advice just issued by the China Consumer Association yesterday, specifically mentions 'choosing fabrics with darker colors and high fiber density' – isn't this exactly the strength of our colored acrylic top?"

This conversation took place at Antai Textile's "Trend Analysis Meeting" – a weekly meeting between the Marketing Department and the Production Department that has been held for 12 years. As a textile veteran rooted in Zhangjiagang since 1993, Antai Textile has evolved from initially producing only acrylic yarn to now being a full-category supplier covering acrylic yarn, acrylic top, colored acrylic top, and fancy yarn, relying precisely on this keen capture of market signals.

"At this time last year, we were still troubled by the 'small-batch multi-color' demand for colored acrylic top," Factory Director Huang recalls last year's adjustments with a tone of emotion. At that time, a group of emerging clothing brands focusing on "personalized sun protection" suddenly emerged in the market, specifically asking for acrylic raw materials with "Morandi colors + anti-ultraviolet properties". The traditional large-batch single-color production mode simply couldn't keep up. Li Xiong led the Marketing Department to visit more than 20 garment factories in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shanghai, noting down customers' color cards and requirements one by one. Upon returning, he immediately worked with Huang's team to modify the technology: on the basis of the original color spinning production line, a small-batch color matching system was installed, reducing the minimum order quantity from 50 tons to 5 tons. They also introduced imported anti-ultraviolet testing equipment from Germany to ensure that the UPF value of each batch of colored acrylic top is stably above 50. "Now, these 'small orders' have become a hot commodity. Last month, we just delivered goods in 12 colors to a sun-protective clothing brand in Hangzhou. The customer said, 'The fabric woven from your yarn doesn't require secondary dyeing, ensures sun protection, and reduces costs by 15%'."

As they were talking, Li Xiong's phone rang; it was an old customer from a textile factory in Xinjiang. "Mr. Wang, the high-elastic acrylic yarn samples you requested? Factory Director Huang has arranged for them to be sent today. This time, we used our newly developed 'two-component composite technology', with an elastic recovery rate of 90%, which is 12% higher than the previous conventional model..." After hanging up the phone, he explained with a smile: "Didn't Xinjiang issue nine new policies for textiles and clothing last month, which focus on supporting 'the application of functional fibers'? Our high-elastic acrylic yarn can just help them make fabrics for sports sun-protective clothing. Upon hearing that they can apply for subsidies under the policy, the customer directly increased the order quantity from 200 tons to 500 tons."

In the workshop, the latest batch of fancy yarn is being packaged, with metallic threads and acrylic fibers interweaving to create a gradient luster. "This is 'Streaming Light Yarn' made for JNBY," Factory Director Huang points to the label. "Their autumn new products are taking the 'natural texture' route, and our fancy yarn workshop used three twist combinations to achieve this effect like sunlight filtering through leaves." As one of the few enterprises in East China capable of producing 16 types of fancy yarn, Antai Textile's fancy yarn workshop has 12 imported production lines, ranging from loop yarn to slub yarn, from speckled yarn to core-spun yarn, and can develop more than 50 new products every year. "Last month, a customer from Shandong visited the factory and said their cotton was growing well, but they wanted to make high-end 'cotton-acrylic blended' fabrics. We immediately test-spun a batch using their cotton samples and our acrylic top, and now the order is already on the production line."

From 'striving for survival' when the first spinning machine was started in 1993 to 'stable development' with an annual production capacity of over 10,000 tons and cooperative customers covering more than 20 provinces and cities nationwide, Antai Textile's 30 years are exactly a microcosm of the transformation and upgrading of China's textile industry. On Li Xiong's desk, there is a yellowed old photo: the 1995 workshop, where workers gathered around old-fashioned spinning machines to manually connect threads; while in the current intelligent workshop, the ERP system monitors the energy consumption and output of each device in real-time, and the MES system can accurately control 'the dyeing error of each kilogram of acrylic top to no more than 0.5 color number'. "Factory Director Huang always says, 'Yarn has temperature'," Li Xiong looks out the window towards Zhangjiagang Free Trade Zone – although cotton stocks there have slightly decreased year-on-year, Antai Textile has long built a stable raw material supply chain through long-term cooperation with Brazilian cotton merchants. "Our generation of textile people must not only hold onto 'the craftsmanship of a single yarn' but also keep up with 'the trend of an industry'."

The afternoon sunlight is stronger, and the sound of machines in the workshop remains regular and powerful. Factory Director Huang walks towards the laboratory with the newly released test report, while Li Xiong turns on his computer and starts organizing the market research plan for the next quarter – the next stop is to participate in the Shanghai International Textile Fabrics Exhibition next month, bringing their newly developed "antibacterial acrylic yarn" and "recycled acrylic top". "There is a market in the data, and a future in the workshop," he writes this sentence in his notebook. "What Antai aims to do is to weave every thread into the warp and weft of the times."