100 Stories1970 FIT Seminar—Introducing the Fashion Business to Japan

There is said to be a game-changing seminar that introduced the concept of the fashion business to Japan and continued for 28 years from 1970. It is called Asahi Kasei FIT Seminar.

In recent years, many apparel brands have been gaining popularity and fashion has been treated as a normal business. However, the situation was completely different in 1970. the founder of the seminar Yoko OHARA (former Manager, Personnel Development for Fashion Business/Director, Asahikasei Textile) recalls the situation at that time saying:

“In a time when ready-made clothes were not widely familiar in Japan, I did not expect there to be a link between fashion and business.”

While a member of Asahi Kasei at the time, Ohara studied abroad at the Fashion Institute of Technology as a Fulbright scholar in 1966.

Ohara wanted to share the mentality and mechanism as well as the human resource training knowledge that she had learned in the US with the fashion industry in Japan. To achieve this, Ohara held the FIT Seminar where she can openly share this knowledge with the entire industry, not only with the company.

At first, this seminar was oriented toward craftsmen from apparel companies, such as pattern-making companies. However, the FIT seminar had a great reputation in the industry, gradually expanding its scale. Before she noticed, middle-level managers and top-level managers, including business leaders, were participating. Among those participants was Tadashi Yanai, founder of Fast Retailing before Uniqlo became famous, who participated every year. Later on, it became a place for individuals who eventually led the fashion business to gather and exchange information.

The seminar lecturers were as gorgeous as the participants. Top managers of the leading brands at the time, such as GAP, Ralph Lauren, and Benetton, as well as distributors, such as Neiman Marcus, were invited to speak in the seminar. Ohara invited top-class managers that are active at the forefront of the world and made it possible to learn leading fashion business theory and expertise in Japan.

One of the participants looked back and said the following regarding Ohara’s personality.
“Ohara is a very positive person. She also held seminars oriented toward managers at the Keidanren Seminar House in Gotemba. She used the summer vacation to travel to the Harvard Executive MBA at her own expense to pursue her own studies and for networking. I am currently about the same age as Ohara at the time, so I realized how energetic she was.”

Even Yanai, the founder of Uniqlo, said “She is the woman I respect the most” regarding her extraordinary ability to take action.
But where does all this energy come from? When asking Ohara herself about this, she looked back and said,

“I thought that finding a job myself with my unique perspective as a woman rather than just waiting would help empower women.”

This strong belief encouraged her to study abroad in the US and launch the FIT Seminar that continued for 28 years.

The FIT Seminar guided Japan, which was undeveloped in the fashion business at the time. Behind the launching of this seminar was a determined woman who created her own path in a time when there was no mechanism for empowering women, with her energy and ability to take action.