Antai Textile: Three Decades of Ingenuity in Dream - Building, Weaving a New Future for the Textile Industry with Environment - Friendly and Innovative Yarns

In July in Zhangjiagang, the wind along the Yangtze River, carrying the unique cotton and linen smell of textile workshops, blows across the factory area of Antai Textile. Li Xiong, the marketing manager, stands in front of the office window, holding the just - printed industry news. The invitation to the New York International Apparel Fabrics and Home Textiles Sourcing Show is particularly eye - catching, and on the corner of the desk lies the report of AruGaw's 'Weaving Spring' customized fashion show, with the words 'Material innovation drives design breakthrough' circled in red pen by him. 'Factory Manager Huang, maybe we should prepare enough samples in advance for that batch of gradient slub acrylic yarn we newly developed,' he dials the phone of the production department. On the other end of the line comes the smiling voice of Factory Manager Huang: 'I was just about to tell you that the production line of fluorine - free dyed colored acrylic tops has been debugged, and the color fastness is two grades higher than the national standard.' This conversation between the office and the workshop hides Antai Textile's survival wisdom in the textile industry over the past three decades. Since it took root in the fertile textile land of Zhangjiagang in 1993, this enterprise, mainly dealing in acrylic yarn, acrylic tops, colored acrylic tops and fancy yarns, has long been accustomed to finding its own direction in the industry wave. When the news that Shenghong Printing and Dyeing first launched a full - process fluorine - free solution came (News 3), Factory Manager Huang's team was disassembling the third version of the dyeing process flow chart in the workshop. 'Traditional acrylic top dyeing cannot do without fluorine - containing auxiliaries. Although the coloring is fast, the environmental protection pressure is high,' he points to the jumping data on the central control screen. 'We spent eight months replacing traditional auxiliaries with plant - based dyes. Now, the carbon emissions of each ton of colored acrylic tops have been reduced by 40%, and the water consumption has been reduced by one - third. Even the downstream customers making children's clothing say that they finally dare to mark "Suitable for infants" on the hangtags.' Li Xiong's attention has always been following the'market barometer'. The 'Weaving Spring' show of AruGaw makes him smell the new opportunity of customization (News 4). When designers are no longer satisfied with conventional yarns, those fancy yarns with feathery, spiral and segment - color effects are becoming the'secret weapons' of runway looks. 'Last month, a designer brand in Zhejiang came to take samples and specifically asked for acrylic yarn that can produce a "matte luster". We blended ordinary acrylic fibers with bamboo pulp fibers and adjusted the drafting multiple during spinning. Three days after sending the samples, we received an order for 2,000 kilograms,' Li Xiong flips through the customer feedback form, with pride in his tone. 'Now there are more than 120 patterns of fancy yarns in the workshop. From the shiny yarn for wedding dresses to the thick - needle loop yarn for trendy brand sweatshirts, we can produce whatever the customers want.' This confidence comes from Antai Textile's persistence in R & D. Just as Shanghai Jieyikang reconstructs the barriers of functional textiles through innovation (News 5), Antai is also constantly delving into the 'functionalization' of acrylic materials. Factory Manager Huang takes the reporter into the constant - temperature and constant - humidity laboratory. On the display stand, there are several rolls of yarn side by side: 'This is the high - elastic acrylic yarn made for a northern down jacket brand. Its stretch and rebound rate can reach 95%, and its warmth - retention property is 20% higher than that of ordinary acrylic. The antibacterial acrylic top beside it is added with nano - silver ions and can still achieve a 99% bacteriostatic rate after being washed 50 times.' He picks up a roll of light purple acrylic top. 'This is the just - debugged fluorine - free dyed product. Look at the color saturation. In the past, it took three times of dyeing to achieve this, but now it can be done in one go without a pungent smell.' Three decades of precipitation have enabled Antai Textile to build a solid reputation in the industry. From initially supplying basic acrylic yarn to local textile factories to now serving more than 300 customers across the country, including many leading clothing enterprises with annual sales exceeding tens of billions (corresponding to the growth trend of enterprises like Bosideng in News 7), it owes all to its sense of being 'half a step ahead of the market'. 'Didn't the Dalian Cashmere Coat Forum last year say that the industrial ecosystem needed to be reshaped?' Li Xiong recalls (News 6). 'We judged at that time that the coat fabrics would move towards "lightweight and warm - keeping". We immediately developed a blended yarn of acrylic and cashmere, which is 30% lighter than pure cashmere and has a 40% cost reduction. Now, several northern coat factories use it as their main fabric.' Currently, in Li Xiong's schedule, the preparation work for the New York exhibition is marked in red (News 8). 'Buyers on the US East Coast attach great importance to environmental protection certification and design uniqueness. Half of the exhibits we are taking this time are fluorine - free dyed colored acrylic tops, and there are also several patented fancy yarns - like that "Meteor Yarn", which has three gradient colors on one yarn and feels like rabbit hair but only costs half as much,' he says with a smile. 'Maybe we can see clothes made of our yarns at next year's New York Fashion Week.' In the workshop, a new batch of gradient slub acrylic yarn is slowly coming out of the winding machine. The sunlight shines through the high - window on the yarn, reflecting a flowing luster. Looking at the stable production data on the display screen, Factory Manager Huang suddenly remembers what the old factory manager said when the factory was established in 1993: 'In the textile industry, one can't survive by sticking to old craftsmanship, but one can't go far without ingenuity.' Thirty years later, Antai Textile protects the green mountains and clear waters with its environmental - friendly process and weaves a fashionable future with innovative yarns, which may be the best interpretation of this sentence.