No one can deny the hot market of Hanfu nowadays.Relevant data show that in the past 3 years, Tmall's hanfu category sales growth more than 6 times.In the first half of this year, 20 million consumers bought hanfu at Tmall, and the potential consumers of hanfu in the future will exceed 400 million.
And new gathering platforms for young people are accelerating the popularity of Hanfu.Data from Bilibili showed that there were 83.47 million fans of guofang on the platform in 2019, 83 percent of whom were young people under 24 years old.
1
When hanfu, a garment once confined to a small group of people, continues to break through the circle, it means the birth of a more popular consumer category. However, at the same time, many shops only see the market dividend and lack the basic awareness of intellectual property protection, which leads to the increasingly fierce "shanzhai and genuine" competition in Hanfu circle in recent years.
The minority hanfu gradually broke through the circle
The potential is huge
"Zuo Zhuan" records: "China has the etiquette of the big, so called xia, chapter service of the United States, that China.Here "Hua" refers to Hanfu, which is gorgeous, elegant, dignified, implicative and inclusive, and contains the Chinese etiquette culture that has been deposited for thousands of years.
Some fans of the national style believe that the "Hanfu trend" set off among young people today conveys a feeling and a national heritage.
Before Hanfu became a phenomenal symbol, people had a vague description of it -- ancient costume.With the "post-1995" and "post-2000" increasingly becoming the main consumer group, Hanfu is defined as an independent consumer category of clothing.
According to the 2019 China Fashion trends report released by taobao new power week in March 2019, hanfu ranks third among the TOP10 trends in fashion search keywords.Searches for "Hanfu" tripled year on year, with more people searching for "shirts" for months on end.
Liu Liu is a hanfu shop owner, he has deep experience of the hot development of Hanfu in recent years.On the first floor of keqiao Textile Market in Shaoxing, Zhejiang province, the world's largest textile market, a glimpse of hanfu's development can be seen, he says, with fabric hanging outside every fabric shop, up from fewer than five a year ago.
Wu Xiao, who has been managing Hanfu brand for six years, recalls that it was very difficult to find a manufacturer specializing in Hanfu at first. Most of them were partial to ancient costume, costume or the kind of fashion accessories.And now, the country has almost more than 20 professional manufacturers of Hanfu.
In September 2019, CCTV reported that the current consumer population of Hanfu market in China has exceeded 2 million, with a total market size of about 1.09 billion yuan.
The hanfu market with huge development potential has attracted a lot of capital into the bureau.It is reported that Ali and Huya successively launched apps featuring Social functions of Hanfu, and applied for trademark protection of multiple categories.
But for some of the weak awareness of intellectual property protection of shopkeepers, a little attention, their painstaking management of hanfu brand is likely to be "taken away".
Mr. Jin, the hanfu brand owner, said in an interview with xiaguang, a financial media outlet, that the cost of sticking to the original is very high, and there are a lot of people in the circle who are doing shanzhai Hanfu.In the short term, the shanzhai do make more money, also can save a lot of cost, but can not be long-term development, now the consumer more and more concerned about the problem of fake "if suddenly have a possibility of shanzhai, consumers will be in a social platform or own circles' hang out 'lightning protection, once in the blacklist, will be indelibly marked on' mountain shop, brand reputation became harder to maintain".
Shanzhai Hanfu flooded the market
Malicious squatting hinders development
In Hanfu circle, "shanzhai" and "plagiarism" are two concepts.
According to insiders, "plagiarism" is based on the existing pattern, to adapt, extract the elements;"Shanzhai" is the direct appropriation of the original business design of hanfu fabrics, or even registered others shop names, trademarks.
In recent years, the "shanzhai vs. authentic" debate has become a hot topic in the Hanfu circle.Original Hanfu vendors have fallen victim to the opportunistic illegal business practices of shanzhai shopkeepers.
According to Wu Xiao, hanfu production cycle is relatively long, from the style design, making samples to the final pre-sale, shipping, the whole process needs at least two months.However, there is also a need to ensure that faster models are updated to attract customers with new ones, while at the same time making the "hot style" as possible.
Wu Xiao recalled that a few years ago, there was no ready-made Hanfu for sale in China. A group of people who were interested in Hanfu spent a lot of time and energy to collect hanfu materials and designed and made hanfu by themselves, which was popular with everyone.But also because of the time and effort, so the price is a little higher.
"Later, when someone saw that it was selling well, they copied some similar Hanfu and sold them to save time, effort and cost less, so many new arrivals would choose the cheaper ones at the back.This created discomfort for the previous generation, whose hard work was simply copied and sold."Wu Xiao said.
In the opinion of many practitioners interviewed, the "shanzhai vs. authentic" battle is hindering the popularity of Hanfu.
Hanfu fans told reporters that many people "know the mountains wear", others will be confused concept, think quality goods price is too high, the price of the populist fake goods is suitable for the primary players, "but the problem is, the original is the designer's work, shanzhai suspected of copying others work achievement, if this practice, foster hanfu cultural inheritance is not likely to last, only a pursuit of cheap, Fashionable business".
Another hanfu lovers also expressed concern: "some original once pushed on hanfu format has been copied from other stores, and then sold for less than the original price, in this case, the original laboured, a copycat is made, if the lack of a strong original protection mechanism, the patience to do original will be less and less."
According to Liu Liu, since 2019, there have been large-scale trademark squatting incidents in the industry, which may be a hidden danger left by the initial stage of hanfu market. In the initial stage, merchants mostly used small-scale self-produced and self-sold models and small workshops, and at that time, there were not too many infringement behaviors.Now the market has ushered in a blowout, prominent commercial value, copycat stores have also increased.
With the help of partners from the fashion world in his studio, 666 registered its trademark at the beginning of the creation of the brand Jin E.
"Otherwise we wouldn't have a strong sense of brand protection."The said.
"The hanfu circle is small, and when it hits a wall, people have a stronger sense of protecting the original."66 six say, nowadays, also have a lot of businessman to come to seek his advice, how to maintain his original brand through trademark registration.
He will also remind businesses to consult to beware of dishonest trademark registration agency - trademark registration itself does not require whether the registrant owns the shop, some shady agency companies can find that the customer provided the trademark is not registered, to rush to note, in order to ask the customer for the amount of money, the transfer of the trademark.
Misappropriating original Hanfu fabrics
It is difficult to tell the difference between fish and fish
Compared with trademark squatting, in the eyes of insiders, the theft of original Hanfu fabrics is a more common infringement of intellectual property rights in the circle, and it is more secretive, which is often difficult to find in time.
According to the introduction, the garment cutting process of Hanfu is generally "flat cutting", that is, cutting through the front and back of the garment, so the fabric pattern needed for hanfu production is very complete, which leads to shanzhai shops or fabric manufacturers of Hanfu are more likely to misappropriate the original fabric design, illegal sales and secondary production.
In Keqiao textile market in Shaoxing, Zhejiang, we found that our original Hanfu fabrics were circulating in the market without authorization.
Song's maxi dress is embroidered with a gold-colored birthday picture of a maid -- liu recognized her home's original fabric at once in live photos sent back from the Keqiao Textile Market in Shaoxing, Zhejiang province.This fabric was used in the hanfu product of "Jin 'e traditional clothing" for the first time at the end of 2018. Liu Liu applied for materials after the fabric design was finished and obtained the work registration certificate.
In May last year, after seeing this fabric being illegally sold on the market, after textual research, the main body that 66 discovers tort is the factory that coproduces fabric.When 66 negotiations with the other side, was told that "only the order of this fabric in those days reached 2000 meters, will not put it out of circulation".
In the face of the manufacturer's infringement, 66 is ready to file a civil lawsuit.
According to the legal personage, the fabric design of clothing can be used as a work of art, apply for the work registration certificate, protected by copyright.Even if a copycat shop applies for a work registration certificate, the local similarity is high, and the court will still consider which certificate is legally valid according to the date of registration.
In addition to protecting the original Hanfu through copyright, some Hanfu merchants will also apply for the foot design scheme that conforms to the provisions of the patent Law as a design patent.
For example, the original Hanfu shop "Buyuge" specializes in the design and production of Hanfu flat shoes. The products on the market now hold six patents.In 2019, Gao Yu, the operator of "Buyuegu", found on Taobao that a shanzhai Hanfu shop had misappropriated the patented design of "Buyuegu" bow shoes, and immediately appointed a lawyer to file a lawsuit.
According to Liu, there are still few reports on the protection of intellectual property rights in costume design, and the Hanfu industry is a new industry, so people tend to form a general perception that it is difficult to file a lawsuit and obtain evidence.
In this regard, practitioners generally believe that, although there are certain legal means to protect original products, hanfu merchants' weak awareness of intellectual property protection, as well as the time and economic cost of appeals, are still difficult problems in the hanfu industry to reduce the "shanzhai and authentic product competition".If we want to put an end to the phenomenon of shanzhai, only by encouraging more and more hanfu merchants to protect intellectual property rights and form authoritative industry standards can we further promote the branding and industrialization of Hanfu and truly break out of the limitation of niche market.
In addition to the problem of copycat, Hanfu also faces the problem of market hype.Practitioner has revealed, for example, some merchants "hunger marketing" style design, has made a lot of style of hanfu circles of out of print, "because the hanfu market imbalance between supply and demand, combined with the hype of the seller to join, gradually making hanfu a luxury, under this trend, people who want to try the new consumption hanfu will only 'stay at a respectful distance from sb."
