ESMOD JAPON will celebrate its 30th anniversary in April 2014 by launching a new course, "A.M.I / Accessing Mode Identity," with the aim of cultivating talent capable of thriving on the global stage. The school is working to develop a new educational methodology incorporating a more conceptual perspective.

The new course's key feature is "divergence and convergence training." It will feature monthly workshops featuring experts from fields outside of fashion, including sociologists, cognitive linguists, mathematicians, martial artists, and journalists. By repeatedly training students to develop designs based on the knowledge and ideas gained in the workshops, the school aims to cultivate talent capable of designing concepts from a multifaceted perspective and proposing new values that transcend the boundaries of fashion.

The new course, "A.M.I / Accessing Mode Identity," will be launched as a standalone, one-year course, the pinnacle of fashion education, with the aim of producing world-class students. "We started 29 years ago with the goal of producing work-ready talent with an international perspective, creativity, originality, and solid skills. Almost every year, 100% of our students find employment in professional positions," said Satoru Nino, president of Esmod International. "When comparing the level of students and teachers at the 22 Esmod Group schools with those in Japan, we find that they are no less impressive than those in Paris. We have achieved our original goal of developing work-ready talent." He added, "As we approach our 30th anniversary, our next challenge is to develop people who can compete on the world stage. We need to demonstrate our presence by winning prizes or winning international competitions that attract attention from around the world, so that students from around the world will flock to Japan. Going forward, we would like to further improve technical skills and develop people who can compete on the world stage, students who can become independent and create their own brands, and talent who can work as designers for luxury brands." The school has already received requests to send scholarship students from the Paris and Indonesia schools. The curriculum consists of "Concept Training," which invites a guest expert from a different field each month to teach students how to incorporate cutting-edge ideas into fashion; "Modelism Training," which offers short-term courses for specialized skills such as draping, men's tailoring, and couture techniques, to help students create more refined collections; and "Collection Production," which involves creating 12 graduation collections over the course of a year based on the conceptual skills gained through training. At the press conference, art director Mikio Sakabe of MIKIO SAKABE said, "Many young people love fashion but aren't interested in clothing design or fashion as an industry. Unlike the 1990s, when Paris Collection and New York Collection were the goal, we now live in an age of diversification, with fast fashion, the internet, and icon creation, where people are questioning the idea of everyone learning the same things. I believe that if we don't understand the essence of fashion, the next generation of designers will not emerge. I want to create the image of a designer that ESMOD INTERNATIONAL GROUP and ESMOD JAPON will promote, including revitalizing production areas and international manufacturing." Yoshikazu Yamagata, art director of Written After Hours, also commented, "Over the past 10 to 15 years, there has been an increase in negative comments about fashion, and fewer young people are interested in studying or working in fashion. It is seen as a symbol of fast fashion and mass production and mass consumption. I want to return to the essence of fashion and seriously consider what it can contribute to society." There are two types of admission: general admission and scholarship admission for those recommended by overseas schools or winners of international competitions. Applications are accepted through a submission review and interviews. Applicants must have acquired the technical skills and expressive abilities equivalent to those of an art university or fashion school graduate. Applicants of any nationality, including university students and working adults, are eligible. Tuition is 100,000 yen for the entrance fee and 1.3 million yen for tuition (entrance fee waived for ESMOD graduates). The selection process runs from August to February 2014 (or closes when capacity is reached). Individual consultations and guidance sessions will also be held starting in August.