In recent years, various phenomena in the domestic outdoor community have shown that outdoor culture is spreading to cities. Urban outdoor styles are emerging, gradually influencing the daily commuting style due to their unique advantages in urbanization, lightness, and universality, forming a unique trend of light business outdoor commuting. Emphasizing comfort, practicality, and fashion, we aim to enhance the diverse needs of key light business outdoor commuting items through multifunctional design and the use of high-tech fabrics. This report focuses on the most widely used waterproof fabrics under this popular trend, and releases the direction of the development and application of new season fabrics from the perspective of material usage.

With the rise of outdoor activities, the demand for outdoor clothing has gradually increased. The functionality of clothing has received attention, especially the basic waterproof function has become one of the important factors for people to choose outdoor equipment. In addition to waterproof function, waterproof fabrics usually also have breathability and abrasion resistance. This report focuses on the globally renowned brands of waterproof fabrics/membranes, namely GORE-TEX, eVent, Dermizax, POLARTEC, Pertex, and Sympatex. It introduces their brand history, waterproof function principles, product line information, and commercial cases, providing development ideas and materials for outdoor sportswear series.

With urbanization, work pressure, and people’s pursuit of healthy lifestyles, more and more people are beginning to value outdoor sports. We can see from social media that more and more people are willing to share their outdoor life experiences and showcase their equipment . In addition, outdoor brands are constantly launching new products and technologies to meet consumers’ needs for outdoor life. Based on research into the new trends of outdoor brands and current consumer actions towards outdoor sports, this report identifies the key development directions for outdoor sports fabrics in 2025, which are mainly divided into three directions: technological exploration, naturalism, and urban outdoor. The technological exploration mainly focuses on professional outdoor exploration, pursuing high-tech texture and high-performance protection; naturalism is a way for people to re-recognize and feel the natural lifestyle, seeking harmony and coexistence with nature; urban outdoor showcases the yearning of urbanites for a free and casual lifestyle, and is a kind of stress-relieving light outdoor sports that meets multiple occasions.

The restart of travelling and the rising concepts of “Time Billionaire” uplift the way of vacation, and give inspiration to a reversed holiday that has no plans. We dominate the time with ease and explore the pure charm of journey. The immersive vacation satisfies the appetite for the new ‘migrant’ tourism. The healing and hopeful spectrum of sunset is fused with practicality, outdoor and midsummer gardening. The fluid lifestyles allow us to spend more time on travel, and stimulate a journey of imagination.

Beyond being only a functional accessory, zippers made of different materials also show visual conflicts and decorative features. Creative zipper teeth, opposing dyed tapes, zip detailing and different applications create different fashion styles.

Fasteners can not only give functional details, but also shift the styling of garments. The smart designs strengthen the practicality and show newness. The application on utility activewear improves the sense of fashion.

With the development of textile chemical technology and textile sustainability, polyester fiber welcomes a new revolution. This report introduces the technical principles and foresees the trend in two directions: eco-friendly polyester and performance polyester.

Outdoor activities such as camping, surfing, frisbee, wild fishing and cycling become popular social topics in 2024. People are now pursuing multi-purpose apparels. Beyond the basic performance of traditional athleisure fabrics, the development of advanced technology improves the functionality of outdoor sportswear and satisfies people’s need for protection. This report will focus on the appearance and performance of outdoor active fabrics, and introduce the latest information about developing background, relative technologies and brands.

Our routine living and working in city limit people’s natural characteristics and hobbies. The desire for releasing mental pressure promotes the multi-dimensional revolution of micro-vacation. The longing for outdoor wildness restarts our lives in a pleasant mood and decodes the pressure. For fashion design, designers are also breaking the monotonous boundaries of purposes and properties to develop practical pieces for multiple occasions.

The continuous tracing and researches of POP Fashion find out that people are more likely to buy items they like, just because they like the look of the product, not whether the product has eco-friendly properties, which means people will not buy sustainable fashion for altruistic reasons. Under the enormous pressure, the fashion industry has ushered in a new creative space - pay attention to the fashion trend of product appearance and environmental protection attributes of products at the same time to develop products with a combination of fashion trends and technological environmental protection materials. Appearance & Texture, Trendy Techniques and Scientific Functions are the three dimensions to display the fashion trends of A/W 23/24 fabrics.

The development of outdoor sports and fashion markets leads to the higher requirements of practicality and protective performance. Different functional accessories have been the key details for all attires. Buckles, sliders, and hooks are placed at new positions. Special fireman clasps and deck hooks are returned for an outdoor military style. Climbing hooks and fixed tabs continue the practicality.

The theme Multifaceted Player conveys that these unconventional cross-border people desire for a carefree and unlimited lifestyle in this diversified background. They are always switching between different characters and scenes and enjoying the fun of being a multifaceted player. The fashion world is also trying to be break the restraint of design to meet consumers’ need of multidimensional symbiosis.

Health has become the hottest global topic because of the epidemic. People desire for outdoor activity, respect the rules of life and nature and want to escape from the complicated trifles and meaningless battles. People are breaking through the limit and searching for their new selves. New functional fabrics explore the development of A/W 22/23 sportswear. Kishu bicho-tan charcoal fiber, bamboo carbon magnetic fiber, weak-acid Paramos cellulose fiber, anti-bacterial photocatalytic synthetic fiber, low-carbon thermal fiber and tear-resistant nylon66 fiber lead to new trend of outdoor functional fabric and provide consumers with more comfortable and advanced dressing experiences.

Since the world entered the 21st century, the amount of natural resources that human beings can obtain from the earth is decreasing, the environmental awareness in consumer goods market is gradually strengthening, and the concept of low-carbon, environmental protection and sustainable is highly praised. Therefore, new fiber textiles have attracted more attention and development. The natural color of Plantcot fiber is eco-friendly and healthy which also reduces the pollution caused by dyeing. The new natural fibers extracted from corn, lavender, banana and sarcandra decrease the waste of plant resource and strengthen the health function of fiber textiles. Moisturizing and skin-protection Collaskin collagen fiber is made by the extraction of the scale and skin of deep-sea fishes. Green energy is the only way to realize sustainable development of human beings. The bio-based products and green energy have become the forefront of the world science and technology field. Therefore, bio-based fiber fabric will become an important trend for fabric development in the future.

With consumers' longing for slow and relaxing life, balanced and healthy comfortable items are in a rising trend. Sports knit fabrics are combined with modern and fresh design aesthetics to bring a brand new feeling. And the new layering design is injected into the basic sports style to endow the comfortable clothes with elegance and delicacy. Flexible life and work styles make comfortable and secure feeling become the key to sports knit fabrics. Therefore, driven by encouraging consumers to maintain a balance between physical and mental health and vitality, stretchy knit fabric, functional mesh knit fabric and 3D applique knit fabric have become the trending fabrics to create versatile sports styling.

After this pandemic, China market ushers in a new era of outdoors, and a new round of men's trousers fabrics will rise in S/S 2022. This new lifestyle drives people to explore new journey and prompts the heat of urban relaxed sports. Viennese photographer Horacio Reyes Páe returns to his hometown in Punta Ballena, Uruguay. He captures the sea island in his childhood memory and finds tranquility and peace. Therefore, protective fabrics are favored by designers, becoming hot fabrics for S/S 2022 men's outdoor athleisure trousers. The PU dust-free knitted fabric, stretchy antibacterial knitted fabric and SUPPLEX functional fabric will be top priorities, worth key attention.

"What do you want to do after the pandemic?" Many people choose to go on a tour and embrace nature. Outdoor sports cover physical exercise, travel, leisure and social activity, thus becoming the favored choice. With the continuous development of outdoor sports, once niche sports have become an important way to exercise, and a new direction of fashion and leisure styles. Mountaineering, diving, skiing and other outdoor sports are popular among young people. In last year, outdoor enthusiasts prefer hiking, followed by mountaineering and camping. Due to the pandemic, now consumers pursue protective outdoor clothing. Therefore, highly protective and adaptive designs become the mainstream. Ripstop, antibacterial, durable and insect-repellent clothes allow consumers to enjoy outdoor sports without worrying about anything else.

As the outdoor equipment is increasing important in street swear, the boundary between it and fashion is getting vaguer. In S/S 2021, sports wear will be more adaptive and functional. Consumers are increasingly demanding for the durability and practicality of products. The mixed design is not limited to street wear and sportswear, and the integration of daily commuting apparel with outdoor accessories will lead consumers to transform into multi-field sports, which is reflected by release buckle straps, decorative strips and color-blocked pipping.