Odakyu winter line by student design

BY AZUSA ITO THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

2010/11/05

Coats designed by students for Odakyu department store in Tokyo's Shinjuku Ward (Photo by Azusa Ito)

Odakyu Department Store in Shinjuku Ward, Tokyo, is breaking with its usual luxury brand image by featuring a new line of winter coats created by design students.

The items were designed by students at Vantan Design Institute in Tokyo's Shibuya Ward working with Odakyu's Shinjuku main store.

Twelve of the institute's second-year students submitted designs for the project and nine works designed by six students were adopted.

Two of the six winners, Misato Imai, 20, and Chise Jinno, 19, are specializing in fashion for girls in their teens and early 20s. They do research mainly at the Shibuya 109 fashion building in Shibuya, where shops for young girls set the latest trends.

The department store's primary customers on the ladies' fashion floor are adult women. But the coat project is aimed at adopting a youthful sense to attract younger customers, said a sales official in charge of women's clothing.

"We thought clothes designed by a younger generation will become a hit," the official said.

Imai and Jinno observed the department store's customers and sales trends for two months before designing clothing that combined their tastes and Odakyu's brand image.

They checked samples created by a fashion maker based on their designs and participated in model auditioning.

More than 50 people turned out Wednesday for a fashion show featuring the new line of clothes.

Jinno said, "I would be happy if customers like my design, even though my specialty is different (from what I designed for the department store)."