China’s Swimwear Capital Can’t Wait for You to Go Back to the Beach

China’s Swimwear Capital Can’t Wait for You to Go Back to the Beach

There may be no place on earth that had been looking forward to summer more than Xingcheng, a laid-back seaside town dotted with the occasional high rise.

Hot sun, cold drinks. Long, languorous days at the beach.

But, most important, swimsuits.

Xingcheng (pronounced SHING-chung), an out-of-the-way factory town on China's northeastern coast, claims to make a quarter of the world's swimwear. This year, though, when China forced its people to stay home to stop the coronavirus, Xingcheng's production of trunks, bikinis and one-pieces ground to a halt.

Then, just as China started getting back to work, the epidemic became a pandemic, and the rest of the world began shutting down. Demand for Xingcheng's swimsuits dried up. Factories and workshops that reopened “” masks, disinfectant and temperature checks in place “” had very little to do.

Some thought about making other stretchy products instead: yoga clothes, scuba diving suits, wrestling outfits. But that would have meant buying new material, finding new suppliers, maybe even investing in new machines. Starting over, basically.

"Nobody was working. Nobody was earning money,“ said Yao Haifu, 42, who has worked in swimwear factories in Xingcheng for more than a decade. "In a word? It was difficult.“

Image"Nobody was working. Nobody was earning money,“