On The Decline Of Hemp Knitted Garments

　　 Linen fabric It was once the most fashionable dress of the Chinese nation. However, fashion can be circulated. China, which first loved Ma, is now embarrassed. On January 5, people flocked into the clothing trade fair of the provincial exhibition hall to see the beautiful clothing. Cotton clothes are always fashionable and hot, while linen clothes are hard to find. After searching the whole hall, only a few blended pants with hemp content of 80%, 45% or 20% were found, and the price was about 200 yuan.

China ranks first in ramie production, with 600000 tons per year. In particular, the output of ramie, known as "Chinese grass", accounts for 90% of the world's total, but the production and sales are extremely asymmetric. Only 5% of China's hemp products are consumed domestically, 95% are exported, and the output value reaches 70 billion yuan. Ma fashion, which is ignored by Chinese people, is popular abroad.

Bequeathed Oriental "Yi Zu"

Hemp is the oldest fashion in China, known as "the source of national textile, the ancestor of clothing for thousands of years". The origin of linen fabric can be traced back to the Neolithic Age more than 10000 years ago. According to textual research, linen was used 5000 years earlier than silk, 6000 years earlier than wool, and 9000 years earlier than cotton.

In the Yan and Huang Dynasties, men farmed and women weaved. Linen spinning took shape, and clothing was different between men and women. Hemp fabrics of more than 6000 years ago were unearthed at Pengtoushan Site in Lixian County. During the Warring States Period, the fine ramie cloth was comparable to silk, which was a precious gift from the nobility. But hemp rough clothes have always been the daily clothes of the general public.

Two thousand years ago in the Western Han Dynasty, linen spinning technology reached maturity. A large number of fine linen fabrics and rare treasure "plain yarn Zen clothes" unearthed from the Han Tomb at Mawangdui have become a milestone in linen spinning technology. At that time, Hunan folk songs sang like this: "Junshan tea, Langshan hemp, are supplied to Beijing every year". Also at this time, hemp weaving boutiques and silk weaving boutiques moved westward along the "Silk Road", entering the Middle East and Europe.

But fashion is always changing, and China has been a spectacular place for thousands of years Ma culture , declined in the Song and Yuan Dynasties. With the extensive planting and utilization of cotton, cotton fiber has gradually replaced hemp fiber as a bulk clothing material. Since modern times, the western trend has spread to the east, and "revolution" has taken place in life taste and clothing concept. The fashion icon of bright, gorgeous and crisp clothing fabric has replaced the simple, rugged and wrinkle prone traditional pockmarks. Western clothing such as suits, jeans and casual wear occupy the wardrobe. The grand "linen clothes and neon clothes" faded out of the Jianghu, and cotton spinning became the mainstream of clothing.

Look around the streets of Changsha to find the reason why people love hemp and wear hemp. Miss Zhao Lanping, a beauty lover, said: "I spent more than 700 yuan the year before last to buy a pair of linen pants, but I don't like to wear them. They are always pressed at the bottom of the box. The linen is easy to wrinkle, not shaped, and ironing is very difficult." People both love it and are annoyed with it, which is the general attitude towards linen clothing nowadays.

Hemp products are no longer popular, and are even regarded as hemp rope sack Such crude things. There are two reasons. One is the technical problem. The domestic hemp spinning technology is lagging behind. It can only produce low count, rough and heavy primary fabrics, which are itchy when wearing. The second is the price. Due to the cost of raw materials, processing difficulties and other reasons, pitted flour is more expensive than cotton, with 50 to 100 yuan per meter. High grade pure linen products are more expensive, and it is easy to wrinkle and "serve" hard, so consumers are "deterred" by hemp.

Chinese hemp industry is restricted by others

When talking about hemp, many experts like to say that it can dissipate heat, smell and moisture, and is rough, neat, elegant, light, cool, breathable and antibacterial. It can be blended with cotton, silk and wool to make up for defects and achieve the best fabric effect. Linen material is warm in winter and cool in summer, breathable and smooth. Therefore, wearing linen close to your body is equivalent to carrying a "natural air conditioner" with you.

The various advantages of hemp can not arouse the pursuit of hemp among those who return home. However, "Ma Fashion" has been carried forward abroad, which is not only because of consumption habits, but also because of culture, tradition and other reasons. In the West, hemp products have always been regarded as the symbol of work position and nobility, and are loved by people with status and status. Egyptian pharaoh costumes, Japanese traditional costumes, Korean national costumes, even Arab headscarves, Islamic robes, Christian bibles, holy robes, etc. are all exquisite linen fabrics. In particular, hemp, as a natural fiber, is highly praised for its green characteristics of bacteriostasis and sterilization. Europeans and Americans love hemp clothing, covering hemp quilts, and using hemp tools.

But we ignored our baby. This status quo of "being hot outside and cold inside" has made China, as a major producer of hemp, subject to restrictions and even exploitation. In the international hemp textile production and marketing chain, China produces a large number of hemp yarn and grey cloth, which are exported to developed countries with meager profits. Through weaving, dyeing and finishing, people weave high count, light and thin fabrics, which turn into exquisite linen products. A high-grade pure linen clothing costs thousands of dollars, and a set of linen bedding costs thousands of euros.

What China has lost is not only its tradition, but also its science and technology. Weave the cloth and sell it to others. They will buy it after finishing it. The seeds bred by themselves will blossom and bear fruit in others. In this regard, Zhou Guotai, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said, "The Chinese are working for others, selling their labor force to earn some hard-earned money. The reason is that technology is not in our hands."

The "race" to revitalize the hemp industry begins

China is the country with the largest hemp resources, planting 20 million mu, and there are tens of millions of hemp farmers, only more than 100000 households in Hunan. But hemp is used for spinning clothes, weaving cloth and making rope fishing nets. According to Xiong Heping, director of the Institute of Flax Research, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, the fiber content of flax reaches 70%, and the conversion rate of fuel ethanol reaches 44%. As a strategic energy material, it has a wide range of new uses, and the development of flax is in the ascendant in the world.

Because of this, the international community has formed a trend of catching up with hemp fiber. The United States is the largest consumer of hemp products, but its cultivation of hemp resources is zero; Europe is the traditional consumption area of hemp products, no less than the United States; Asia is a big market, especially China, whose natural fiber consumption will exceed 40% in the next 20 years. Africa and Australia are also vying for the market share of hemp fiber, which is "a quarter of the world" with the United States, Europe and Asia. This general trend will continue to affect the entire 21st century.

For China, in addition to the "external force" factor, there is also urgent internal demand for the revitalization of the hemp industry: first, the cotton price soared to 30000 yuan/ton cotton Shortage and urgent need for flax fiber supplement; Second, the export value of hemp products increased to 70 billion yuan last year, which can boost domestic demand by 700 billion yuan at the level of policy demand to start domestic demand.

The "race" has just begun. China has the richest hemp resources and has taken the lead. However, the "short board" of hemp industry chain is also obvious when playing games with rivals. In the upstream, the breeding and production level lags behind the development of the international hemp product market. The collection and stripping of hemp are manual, with low quality rate, low coverage of high-quality varieties, and low fiber content; In the downstream, biological degumming technology is not fully popularized, primary processing, dyeing and finishing technology and post-treatment process are still weak, and terminal products are in short supply.

"Ma Fashion" Appears in China

China is already taking action. In 2009, the construction of the national hemp industry technology system was launched, covering 16 provincial (municipal) hemp production areas. The goal is to build a technical support terminal from the origin to the table, from production to consumption, from research and development to the market, and has formed new technology products such as environment-friendly hemp mulch film and hemp protein feed.

The "Twelfth Five Year Plan" of the linen industry has also been drawn, which has always been guided by three principles: first, do not compete with grain and cotton for land, and implement the "three places" strategy of ramie hillside land, flax winter fallow land, and Hongma beach land, forming regional characteristics of hemp; Second, closely follow the theme of environmental protection, use marginal land such as mountains, wasteland, saline alkali land, cultivate new varieties with high yield, quality, high resistance and special purpose, and create an ecological hemp garden base; The third is to overcome the key problems of degumming and processing of bast fiber, improve the spinnability and process level of bast fiber, and create diversified bast products. Some experts, especially textile and consumption experts, called for strengthening the science popularization of hemp products to make young people unfamiliar with hemp like hemp fabrics.

Hunan is the first province producing ramie in China, and its ramie processing capacity also ranks among the top in China. However, there are still many restrictions after the "fat money" at the end of last century. Now, the advantages are being overtaken by other provinces, like Yixintai, a hemp textile boutique that once led the domestic market. Its main business is not big, and it is more difficult to become strong. In fact, the leading unit of the construction of the national hemp industry technology system, the Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, is in Hunan, and some important scientific and technological achievements have also been made in Hunan. If the strategy is appropriate, the revitalization of the hemp industry will bring about the return of hemp fashion.

In this regard, Xiong Heping As the chief scientist of domestic hemp research, he predicted that the rise of the hemp industry was just in time, and the Chinese hemp fashion was also beginning to take shape. Just a year ago, Zhou Guotai, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, developed a "four piece set" of linen fabric: two pillowcases, a bedspread and a quilt cover, with a price tag of 19860 yuan.

The hemp fashion is ready to develop. Modern technology is used to get rid of its coarseness, and modern economy is used to get rid of its expensiveness, so that more and more hemp products can enter the ordinary door. The "elegant hemp clothes" of the Han Dynasty will not be a swan song.