Textile Secretary unveils first 'Fashion Innovation Lab'

22 Dec '09

3 min read

The AEPC's Education & Training arms, the Institute of Apparel Management(IAM) and the Apparel Training & Design Centre (ATDC) have recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU). The MoU has envisaged setting up of an “Activity and Off Campus Centre” at IAM to offer UG/PG programmes.

The “IAM-IGNOU Fashion & Design Management Centre” at IAM is envisaged to offer Bachelor degree programme in “Fashion Design Technology” and Masters Programme Fashion Business Management with industry relevant curriculum to provide employment opportunities in Fashion, Apparel, Lifestyle, Retail and other allied sectors. The centre was launched at the IAM by Mrs Rita Menon, Secretary, Ministry of Textiles, at a brief function held on the 7th floor of Apparel House.

She took a round of the Institute and said: “There is a huge gap between the garment industry's growing needs and the large pool of unemployed youth in India. I am glad that AEPC's IAM (Institute of Apparel Management) and ATDCs (Apparel Training and Design Centres) are working towards creating skilled human resources for the rapidly-growing domestic and export sectors to bridge the gap.”

Shri Rakesh Vaid, Chairman-AEPC said: “The key objective of IAM is to create “industry-ready managerial cadre” for the very challenging and demanding export industry as well as for creating new avenues for design & professionals in the Retail industry and the new centre will ensure students to have affordable education at IAM.”

In line with fast paced growth of the globalising fashion industry and considering that Indian apparel industry is becoming part of the Global Supply Chain, the Institute has already established significant partnerships with leading international institutes in fashion & apparel management. The tie-up with IGNOU will enable IAM to now offer Indian education pathways by offering both UG & PG programmes.

Dr. Darlie Koshy, DG, IAM said that “the programmes will be “future-proof” “industry relevant” with high level of balance between skills and knowledge to create a new generation of fashion professionals especially trained on state of art technologies including the “Fashion Innovation Lab”.

During this occasion, Mrs Menon also unveiled the first “Fashion Innovation Lab” in the country set up in collaboration with Tukatech USA. The Fashion Innovation Lab is a future learning platform in a “Merchandising Live” approach so that 3D Virtual Prototyping, Pattern making, grading, market making, Fit verification, Visual Storyboarding, Fabric and Printed Design Color ways Repeats etc. can be done from “Fibre to Fashion” and “consumer from concept” in very compressed time frames.

“There will be also live case studies and experiences dovetailed with the curriculum in collaboration with leading buying houses and manufacturer exporters for bringing in a more “realistic” approach to training merchandisers thus elevating this specialised area to the level of Key Management task value adding to both buyers and exporters at the same time”, Dr. Darlie Koshy, DG, IAM said.

Apparel Export Promotion Council (AEPC)

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