Tmall and Mitsubishi Chemical Corp. have announced the release of Celwarm, a thin, heat-generating fabric designed to keep consumers warm without added bulk. Tmall, Alibaba's online marketplace for Chinese consumers, will market the fabric in the lead-up to November's 11.11 Global Shopping Festival.

The collaboration between Tmall and Mitsubishi Chemical Corp. is the latest move by Tmall’s new trend-forecasting initiative, which aims to help fashion brands sell into China by providing market insights and finding upstream fabric manufacturers. 

“Based on our platform’s big data and consumer analytics, we’ve found that textiles are a deciding factor for many [fashion] categories, such as innerwear,” said Jessica Liu, general manager of Tmall Fashion and Luxury. Brands, she added, are increasingly looking to upgrade the materials they use to design garments as consumers become more selective.

Celwarm works by absorbing and trapping heat rays from the sun and incandescent light bulbs, while engineered fibres enhance its anti-static capabilities. Vero Moda, Only, Selected, and Jack & Jones, owned by Danish clothing company Bestseller, as well as Chinese intimate apparel brands Bananain, Miiow, and Maniform, have already begun leveraging the warming fabric in their designs.