In today's rapidly evolving consumer landscape and fiercely competitive market, "time-honoured Chinese brands" are both a trump card and a hindrance to corporate development. These brands, carrying the memories of generations and holding the trust assets accumulated over time, face the challenges of younger consumer perspectives and evolving market strategies.

At Interfilière Shanghai 2025, Ms. Zhang Ying, Chief Designer of Shanghai Gujin Underwear Group Co., Ltd., delivered a speech centred on "A Symbiotic Model of Traditional Brands and Innovative Power." Through detailed practical examples, she showcased a comprehensive innovation covering products, marketing, and technology, providing a highly valuable model for the transformation of time-honored brands.

Trust Assets and the Challenges of Our Time

Trust Assets and the Challenges of Our Time. The breakthrough of any brand is inseparable from its historical foundation. Gujin's transformation began nearly a century ago with brand accumulation. 

Founded in 1930 on Avenue Joffre (now Huaihai Middle Road) in Shanghai, the brand started by custom-making Russian and Western-style bras for wealthy women in the concessions, and has evolved to its current state. Having undergone three eras of development, Gujin has accumulated three major assets: 

First, as the only "China Time-Honoured Brand" in the Chinese underwear industry, it possesses the "Gujin Bra Making Technique," an intangible cultural heritage of Huangpu District, a unique barrier distinguishing the brand from similar products. 

Second, its self-built modern factory in Pudong New Area, Shanghai, established in 1996, has created a mature supply chain and exclusive product system, providing a solid guarantee for product quality. 

Third, its business philosophy of "diligence and quality, integrity and trustworthiness, and building a business on trust" has established a deep trust between the brand and consumers that transcends generations.

While time has benefited Gujin, it has also brought severe challenges: the main consumer group has shifted to Generation Z, who pursue individuality and trends, and the label of "brand for mothers" has become an obstacle to attracting young consumers. At the same time, emerging underwear brands, with their flexible marketing models and youthful product designs, are constantly squeezing market space. How to revitalize its "old reputation" in the new era has become a problem that Gujin must solve.

Product Innovation Through Traditional Craftsmanship and Modern Aesthetics

Products are the core medium for communication between brands and consumers. Instead of overturning tradition, Gujin has opted for a symbiotic model of "old craftsmanship + new aesthetics" to revitalize its products. A key initiative is its deep collaboration with Donghua University, a leading institution specializing in textiles and apparel. 

This collaboration goes beyond simple co-branding; it's a comprehensive partnership encompassing design, talent development, and R&D—jointly hosting design competitions to discover creativity, fostering talent to inject fresh blood into the brand, and co-developing products to integrate technology and craftsmanship.

Under this model, Gujin's intangible cultural heritage artisans' precise understanding of the Eastern female form and their centuries-old pattern-making techniques complement Donghua University's cutting-edge research in new fabrics, ergonomics, and fashion trends. 

The inclusiveness of intangible cultural heritage techniques collided with the technological sophistication of university research, yielding remarkable results: the brand's "Confession of Body and Soul" minimalist series, launched in 2025, not only maintained the brand's core strengths of comfort and fit but also incorporated modern minimalist design concepts; its debut at the Milan Fashion Week in 2025 also proved to the international market that time-honored brands can not only meet the practicality of everyday wear but also resonate with international fashion aesthetics.

Using Cultural Heritage to Drive Traffic Logic

However, in modern society, simply making good products is no longer a guaranteed path to success. In an era of scarce attention, product quality alone is insufficient for brand expansion. 

Both ancient and modern brands have mastered this principle and discovered a marketing symbiotic path of "old reputation + new traffic". The core lies in exploring their own cultural heritage and deeply linking with contemporary popular IPs, so that the brand story can be integrated into new cultural narratives and social scenarios.

In May 2025, Gujin and the Shanghai Kunqu Opera Company jointly held the "Ancient and Modern Elegance: The Charm of Kunqu Opera" art exhibition and launched co-branded products. These products combined the supple texture of underwear with the millennia-old elegance of Kunqu Opera, elevating the brand's cultural image and allowing intangible cultural heritage techniques to reach consumers in a more aesthetically pleasing way. 

In June, targeting the exam season, they collaborated with the Wenchang Palace to launch "Blessed T-shirts," using the culture of blessing to evoke emotional resonance among students and parents, achieving a precise connection between the brand and current social trends.

This dual IP collaboration of "intangible cultural heritage + time-honoured Chinese brand" avoids a rigid traffic-driven approach, instead establishing an emotional connection through cultural resonance. This allows established reputations to achieve efficient dissemination through new topics and scenarios, successfully bridging the gap with younger consumers.

Industry Experience and Cutting-Edge Technology Strategy

If the symbiosis of product and marketing is a strategy for dealing with the present, then the symbiosis of "old experience + cutting-edge technology" at the technological level demonstrates Gujin's forward-looking strategy for the future. Leveraging nearly a century of accumulated experience in underwear manufacturing, including human body data and wearing experience, the brand is venturing into the field of smart wearables, envisioning the launch of smart underwear with "unobtrusive continuous monitoring." 

This concept product is not merely clothing; it aims to become an entry point for health services—collecting body data through built-in sensors, providing health advice after intelligent analysis, and ultimately building a closed-loop ecosystem from monitoring to management.

The significance of this strategy extends far beyond the product itself: it means that Gujin will not only produce traditional clothing but also provide comprehensive health technology services. This not only continues the brand's core focus on human comfort and health but also opens up new growth opportunities, injecting technological momentum into the long-term development of this time-honoured brand.

Reviewing Gujin Underwear's "symbiotic" practice, its success lies in its balanced approach to tradition and innovation—not abandoning its core assets such as nearly a century of accumulated craftsmanship and brand reputation, nor resisting external innovative forces such as universities, intellectual property, and technology. Instead, it uses "symbiosis" as a bond, making tradition the foundation of innovation and innovation an extension of tradition.