Antai Textile: 30 Years of Deep Cultivation, Colored Acrylic Top Becomes the 'Trend Key' to Unlocking the Warm and Premium Feel of Autumn-Winter Knitwear

(Main Text) In Zhangjiagang in July 2025, the cicadas' songs of midsummer hide textile people's expectations for the autumn-winter market. In the office of Antai Textile's Marketing Department, Marketing Manager Li Xiong is intently pondering an industry report. The title on the screen, 'Pansy Knitwear: The Master Key to Unlocking the Lazy and Premium Feel of Autumn-Winter', stands out prominently – this is a newly released industry hotspot, with every line revealing consumers' dual pursuit of 'warmth' and 'texture' in autumn-winter knitwear. His fingertips glide over keywords like 'cloud-like skin feel' and 'color layering' in the report, then he suddenly looks up and smiles at his assistant beside him: 'The new batch of colored acrylic top from Factory Director Huang is just the "key" for this trend.'

This敏锐 capture of market trends is backed by Antai Textile's nearly 30 years of deep accumulation in the textile industry. Since establishing roots in Zhangjiagang, Jiangsu in 1993, this enterprise, which focuses on acrylic yarn, acrylic top, colored acrylic top, and fancy yarn, has positioned itself as a 'trend catcher at the raw material end'. From initial single acrylic top production to now being an industry mainstay with a wide range of differentiated products, it has relied on precise insight into and rapid response to market demand.

'Manager Li is absolutely right. The 120-count ultra-fine acrylic top that just came off the production line last week feels like holding a cloud in your hand,' said Factory Director Huang from the Production Department, his voice coming through the phone against the low hum of machines in the spinning workshop. As a 'veteran textile man' who has been with Antai Textile for 20 years, Huang is almost obsessive about refining production processes. He remembers that ten years ago, when the domestic knitwear market was still pursuing 'cost-effectiveness', Antai Textile had already started investing in R&D of 'low-temperature dyeing technology' for colored acrylic top – traditional acrylic dyeing requires high temperature and pressure, which easily damages fiber toughness. However, by adjusting the dye ratio and dyeing time, they enabled acrylic top to firmly lock in color at a low temperature of 70°C, increasing color fastness by 40% while actually enhancing fiber softness by 15%. 'The "lazy feel" that customers want now is not just about loose design, but more about soft fabric,' Huang said. Earlier this year, based on the Marketing Department's feedback on the demand for 'autumn-winter soft style', the Production Department optimized the spinning process by blending acrylic fibers with a small amount of modal. The resulting yarn not only retains the warmth of acrylic but also gains a touch of drape. 'A while ago, we sent samples to a leading knitwear brand in Zhejiang. Their designer used this yarn to make a sample pansy knitwear, and as soon as the sample was hung in the exhibition hall, 500 pieces were pre-ordered.'

Such 'trend response' is no accident. Li Xiong has a dynamically updated 'market demand map' stored on his computer, marking keywords extracted from industry reports, exhibition feedback, and customer orders over the past three years: 2023 was about 'environmental regeneration', and Antai Textile immediately launched degradable acrylic top; 2024 was about 'retro texture', so the fancy yarn workshop developed slubbed loop yarn; and in 2025, 'warm texture' and 'color narrative' have become high-frequency terms – which exactly align with the demand for 'Tibetan sheep warmth legend' and 'pansy premium feel' in the July industry hotspot. 'Acrylic itself is "artificial wool", with natural warmth as its advantage. What we need to do is to make this warmth have more "design language",' Li Xiong explained. For example, to meet the color needs of "pansy knitwear", Antai Textile's colored acrylic top has achieved full spectrum coverage from "single color" to "gradient dyeing" and "segment dyeing". Customers only need to provide a color card, and the production department can mix the custom color within 72 hours. 'Last month, a brand in Shandong wanted to make a "maple orange gradient series". We directly spun yarn with segment-dyed acrylic top, eliminating the post-dyeing step, helping them shorten the production cycle by 10 days and reduce costs by 8%.'

With nearly 30 years of deep cultivation in the industry, Antai Textile's confidence lies not only in its sensitivity to trends but also in the dual support of technology and scale. At the production base in Zhangjiagang, 8 modern spinning production lines operate day and night, with an annual capacity of 12,000 tons. Among them, colored acrylic top and fancy yarn account for over 60%, with products covering more than 20 provinces and cities nationwide and stable cooperation established with nearly 100 knitwear and home textile brands. 'Many customers have been cooperating with us for over ten years. They say they choose Antai because we don't just sell raw materials; we can also help them "predict trends",' Li Xiong recalled. Last winter, a customer was torn between "checkerboard" and "stripes" being more popular. Based on consumer big data, he suggested promoting "colorful dot fancy yarn", and as a result, this series of knitwear sold over 10,000 pieces monthly on e-commerce platforms. 'Now, before launching new products, they always ask us, "What yarn will be popular next month?"'

With the industry's positive trend of the SW Textile Manufacturing Index rising by 2.3% in July, Antai Textile's workshops have become even busier. Huang is leading his team to debug the newly introduced "intelligent color matching system", which uses AI algorithms to match popular color libraries, shortening the traditional 3-day color matching process to 4 hours; Li Xiong, on the other hand, is preparing for next week's customer salon, where he will bring the newly developed "cloud velvet acrylic yarn" to chat with designers about "the warmth and aesthetics of autumn-winter". From a small workshop in 1993 to an industry benchmark today, Antai Textile has proven through nearly 30 years of persistence: the "legend" of the textile industry has never been an unreachable height, but rather like the acrylic yarn in hand – woven into the "warmth and premium quality" of each autumn and winter through delicate perception of market demand and repeated refinement of process details.