ESMOD was founded in the year 1841 by Alexis Guerre-Lavigne,
the tailor of Empress Eugenie, wife of Napoleon the 3rd,
as the world's very first and oldest renowned fashion design school in the world.
Alexis Guerre-Lavigne,
founder of ESMOD
The founding of ESMOD was to bring about a landmark development
in the field of tailoring.
The founder of ESMOD, Alexis Guerre-Lavigne published his first textbook
on tailoring in 1841, and followed up with “155 Tailoring Patterns” in 1843.
The publication of this textbook made methodical training possible for young tailors & couturiers, who until then had to rely entirely on apprenticing for their education.
Alexis Guerre-Lavigne also invented the first tape measure as well as the first draping mannequin.
These two tools allowed artisans, who until then had had to rely on their intuition to tailor clothing, to use actual numerical data in order to make precisely calculated garments.
Founded in tradition, ESMOD continues to innovate, eventually resulting in the publication of its own fashion design textbook.
ESMOD has willfully implanted itself as a pivotal axis in the development of apparel as we know it today.
ESMOD founder Alexis Guerre-Lavigne's landmark method continues to live on in the network's 20 schools currently located in 13 countries worldwide.
ESMOD JAPON
In 1984, ESMOD JAPON Tokyo was founded as the first oversea campus of ESMOD, and ESMOD Osaka in 1994.
