Kobe City is Currently Seeking Cooperating Companies and Organizations for a Project to Support Students Studying Apparel in Kobe – Kobe

　Kobe City is currently recruiting cooperating companies and organizations for the “Kobe Apparel Student Support Project”.

Meeting of “KOBE Regional Contribution Support Platform Project” at Maxine’s

　This project aims to develop human resources who will be active in the future in the apparel field, a major industry in Kobe, and to revitalize Kobe as a fashion city. The city of Kobe, together with companies and organizations, will work together to create a citywide support system for students studying fashion in Kobe.

　The companies and organizations will support the students by selling and providing discounted fabrics, parts, and other materials necessary for production, offering photo shooting spots and discounts or exemptions on usage fees, providing tours of workshops and actual stores, accepting interns, providing opportunities to interact with craftspeople and apparel staff, providing venues for activity presentations and fashion shows, and so on. The students return the fruits of their support and growth to the local community.

　Various Kobe companies have so far endorsed the project and provided support to the students of the designated schools. The stationery specialty store “Nagasawa Stationery Center (Sannomiya and Plenty stores)” offered discounts to students who presented their student ID cards, and the handicraft specialty store “Yuzawaya (Kobe, Umeda, Akashi, and Kawanishi stores)” offered coupons and free membership in the paid membership “Tomonokai.

　Maxine, a long-established hat store in Kobe, offered high-quality tulle and fabrics that had been lying dormant in its warehouse to Kobe Bunka Fashion College. They will be used as materials for dresses and clothes made during practical training.

　Kenji Yanagi, managing director of Makishin, said, “As a Kobe-based company with its main store on Toa Road, we are wondering if there is anything we can do to help. We hope that the community can support each other, even if only a little, during this difficult time.

　Maxine has also provided fabrics to the Fashion and Housing Design Department of Kobe Shoin Women’s University’s Faculty of Human Sciences through the “KOBE Regional Contribution Support Platform Project. The fabrics were used in a fashion show for which the students planned, publicized, directed, and designed costumes.

　Hiroyuki Inoue, a full-time lecturer at Kobe Shoin Women’s University’s Department of Fashion and Housing Design in the Faculty of Human Sciences, said, “The encouragement we received from the local community was very encouraging, as we were unable to hold on-campus events in the same format as in previous years.

　Companies and organizations that cooperate in the “Kobe Apparel Student Support Project” will receive stickers for display in their stores and will also be introduced on the Kobe City website.

　Applications are accepted via a dedicated form on the official website or by e-mail. The deadline for applications is March 31.