ABOUT US

Fashion is a global growing industry.
It’s you who shoulder the future.

President of ESMOD INTERNATIONAL Satoru Nino

Global fashion market is predicted to be worth about 270 trillion yen a year in the next 10 years, which is twice bigger than now. Our education is based on “Creation, Technic and Innovation”, and our goal is a hybrid education which blends tradition and the hottest technology and links creation and business. It allows us to train human resources who will play an active role on the world stage in fast-changing and developing fashion industry.

To get things started, have a dream or goal. If you don’t, of course you can take your time to figure out yours. The more you try, the tougher you become. Challenge never loses its importance. And the more you challenge, the more you fail. But this failure enables you to learn a lot and gives you many lessons.

Fashion product is like the tip of an iceberg. Tradition, culture, art, economy, social phenomena, technology and many other creation sources support what we see in our daily life like the submerged part of the iceberg.

Point of view and philosophy are the source of originality for humans, including creators.
Learning something allows you to develop your own value for life, pursue the essence and seek truth, then you will understand the universe that you want to express. Make dreams come true by exploring who you are and taking ample time to open up your life.

President of ESMOD INTERNATIONAL

Satoru Nino

ESMOD History

In 1841, the world’s first fashion school was founded.

In 1841, during the Second French Republic (1848 – 1852 and 1852 – 1870), the world’s first fashion educational institute was founded in Fontaine street of Paris by Alexis Lavigne, a court tailor of Napoleon III. This is the beginning of ESMOD.
In the same year, he invented the couture mannequin and the measure (tape measure), and developed a logical flat pattern cutting method for women’s and men’s clothing. He published textbooks as the first step to train systematically young tailors and couturiers, for whom apprenticeship was the only way to acquire techniques at that time. Then his daughter Alice Guerre Lavigne took over the school under new name “Guerre-Lavigne school” and started to accept women as students. It was awarded by the homeland and other European countries for its contribution to fashion and cultural activities.

International network expansion has started from ESMOD JAPON.

Berthe Lecomte-Guerre and Jean Lecomte-Guerre took over ESMOD and introduced in 1970 ready-to-wear creator training curriculum to the traditional program, which was focusing on haute couture. Innovative and professional curriculum aiming at adapting to the latest needs has successively prepared career of Thierry Mugler, Eric Bergère, Franck Sorbier and other world-renowned designers and creators. In 1980’s, fashion industry marketing became more conceptual and theoretical. That led us to found a fashion business school Institut Supérieur Européen de la Mode (ISEM) in 1989. Since then, ISEM has put effort into developing students who want to become a marketing or communication team manager.

ESMOD globalisation has started from ESMOD JAPON, which was founded as the first ESMOD school outside France in 1984 by Satoru Nino, the current representative of ESMOD International. ESMOD group network has been so expanded that it is composed of 20 schools in 13 countries with unique school cultures and industrial background. Annual international meeting is held to see educational result. ESMOD philosophy is surely inherited around the world with enjoying intercultural exchange and sharing educational experience and industrial situation. ESMOD JAPON also collaborates with CNAM (Conservatoire national des arts et métiers) and provides an international bachelor program where students major in innovation management in fashion business and get an international certificate equivalent to a bachelor’s degree.