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GARDE and TOKYO MODE GAKUEN, a professional college that cultivates talent ready to excel in fashion, design, business, interior, graphic, and beauty industries, are launching the “Digital Fashion Award” as a new industry–academia collaboration project.
As the first initiative, a free event titled “The Present and Future of Digital Fashion Development” will be held at TOKYO MODE GAKUEN Hall A on Tuesday, October 21, 2025, alongside the preliminary judging for the award.

About the “Digital Fashion Award”

In recent years, the fashion industry has rapidly adopted the 3D development tool “CLO”. However, its use often remains limited to sample production or internal reviews, and has yet to be fully leveraged for new revenue opportunities such as marketing, e-commerce, or metaverse deployment.

Through this project, GARDE and TOKYO MODE GAKUEN aim to explore the potential for secondary utilization and monetization of digital assets, using the creativity of next-generation student designers as the foundation.

Under the theme “Casual Party on Metaverse” (avatar fashion for a casual party in the metaverse), approximately 80 student design sketches were submitted. Ten designs will be selected and converted into CLO data. During the event, participants will cast votes in an interim judging session.
The top five designs, chosen through audience voting, will be implemented in Fortnite, the online game operated by Epic Games, and unveiled in early 2026 through a virtual runway that fuses gaming and fashion. The grand prize-winning design will be decided from among these finalists.

Fortnite Official Website: https://www.fortnite.com/

Background of the GARDE × TOKYO MODE GAKUEN Collaboration

This initiative leverages the strengths of both institutions to highlight new possibilities for fashion in the age of the metaverse.
TOKYO MODE GAKUEN has developed an educational curriculum utilizing CLO to nurture practical digital fashion skills among students, broadening career paths beyond apparel into digital, gaming, and IT fields.

Meanwhile, GARDE, with 11 global offices and extensive experience in spatial design, has also been developing projects that merge physical and digital realms, such as the COCOWARP Virtual Museum. For this award, GARDE will oversee the Fortnite implementation and venue design, ensuring that garment details are faithfully reproduced.

By combining student creativity with GARDE’s technical expertise, the award goes beyond academic training to provide hands-on professional experience. It also offers students valuable exposure to industry partners while enabling the fashion sector to explore new models for digital asset utilization.

COCOWARP Official Website: https://www.cocowarp.com/

Panel Discussion: “The Present and Future of Digital Fashion Development”

The event will feature a panel discussion with leading voices from the metaverse industry, exploring the latest trends and opportunities in digital fashion development.

Traditionally, 3D data and development tools have been adopted primarily as cost-saving measures. This session will explore how these assets can instead be transformed into marketing and monetization tools in the metaverse era.

Key discussion points include:

• “Are you leaving your 3D data unused within your company?”
• “Have you struggled to see results from implementation and hesitated to take the next step?”

Panelists will share concrete strategies and business models for transforming digital fashion into a core revenue source, creating a cross-industry dialogue on fashion DX and the next stage of digital innovation.

Panelists:　CLO Virtual Fashion Japan – Emily Choi, Ami Kamiyama
GARDE – Takuji Kakuda

Event Overview

Target Audience: Apparel companies; digital and metaverse-related businesses
Date: Tuesday, October 21, 2025
Time: 13:00–15:00 (Doors open at 12:50)
Venue: TOKYO MODE GAKUEN Hall A
Address: 1-7-3 Nishi-Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 160-0023
Access: https://www.mode.ac.jp/tokyo/access

Program:
12:50　Doors open
13:00　Opening remarks / Introduction of the TOKYO MODE GAKUEN × GARDE collaboration
Student presentations of award entries
13:30　Panel discussion: “The Present and Future of Digital Fashion Development”
14:10　Networking session / Interim judging for the award
14:50　Closing remarks

Program details are subject to change.

Participation Fee: Free
Registration Form: https://forms.gle/D6f323NEM65WchCs7

Please register via the form above. Registration will close once capacity is reached.

About TOKYO MODE GAKUEN
Located just three minutes on foot from Shinjuku Station, TOKYO MODE GAKUEN is a professional college that fosters industry-ready professionals across fashion, design, business, interior, graphics, and beauty.
With an industry-integrated curriculum, it has achieved a 100% job placement rate for 18 consecutive years (since FY2007).
Its three major guarantee systems — the “Complete Employment Guarantee,” “National Qualification Pass Guarantee,” and “Salary Guarantee” — demonstrate its confidence in student outcomes.
Website：https://www.mode.ac.jp/tokyo

From October 10 (Fri) to October 22 (Wed), 2025, GARDE Gallery will host “Garden of Lights,” a solo exhibition by artist Akira Inumaru.

Inumaru engages with the vast and universal theme of “light,” approaching it as a tangible substance through diverse forms of expression such as painting, drawing, performance, and installation. In recent years, his work has centered on two primary techniques: a series of drawings in which parts of images on paper are scorched using sunlight concentrated through a magnifying glass, and a series of paintings that reinterpret “color” as “light,” where pigments become “powder of light” and paints are imagined as “paste of light” by mixing pigments with acrylic resin.

We warmly invite you to take this opportunity to view the exhibition.

Artist Profile

Akira Inumaru
Born 1984, Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan
2008 Completed Master’s Program in Oil Painting, Musashino Art University
2013 Completed Master Class at École Supérieure d’Art du Havre/Rouen
Currently based in Rouen and Paris, France
Solo Exhibitions
2024 Plantes, Witness of Light (Botanical Garden Greenhouse, Kraków, Poland)
2024 Chambres ardentes (Saint-Maclou Church, Rouen, France)
2023 Mon Cher Jardin (Château de Villandry, Villandry, France)
2022 Cimes et Racines (Church of Saint-Ouen, Rouen, France)
2022 Jardins flottants (Michel Ciry Museum, Varengeville-sur-Mer, France)
2018 Botanique (Luxembourg Garden Greenhouse, Paris, France)
2018 Langage des fleurs (MOCAK Museum of Contemporary Art, Kraków, Poland)
2016 Portrait des plantes (Municipal Botanical Garden, Rouen, France)
2015 Kata – D’une lumière à l’autre (Yves Klein Archives, Paris, France)
Group Exhibitions
2024 Spleen of Paris (Tichauer Art Gallery, Tychy, Poland)
2021 Star Makers (Foro Boario Center for Contemporary Art, Oristano, Italy)
2021 ROOTS (FLORE Arts Gallery, Kobe, Japan)
2018 Tatsuno Art Project in Kraków (Manggha Museum, Kraków, Poland)
2018 Pharmakon II (Sonen-an, Kyoto, Japan)
2013 Tatsuno Art Project 2013 (Tatsuno, Hyogo, Japan)
2013 Kofukuji International Art Exhibition (Kofukuji Temple, Nagasaki, Japan)
Awards
2022 Grant: Bourse Arts Visuels (Seine-Maritime Prefecture, France)
2019 23rd Antoine Marin Prize / 3rd Place
2015 Grant: Aide à la création (DRAC Haute-Normandie, France)
Selected Artist Residencies
2025 Katsurao Collective (Katsurao, Fukushima, Japan)
2024 Michel Ciry Museum (Varengeville-sur-Mer, France)
2015 Villa Calderón (Louviers, France)
2013 Tatsuno Art Project (Tatsuno, Hyogo, Japan)
2012 Tatsuno Art Project (Tatsuno, Hyogo, Japan)

Exhibition Information

Akira Inumaru: “Garden of Lights”
Dates: October 10 (Fri) – October 22 (Wed), 2025
Hours: 11:00 AM – 6:00 PM
Venue: GARDE Gallery, 4F ALLIANCE Building, 5-2-1 Minami-Aoyama, Minato-ku, Tokyo
Closed: October 18 (Sat), Sundays, and National Holidays