We also won an international advertising award! “NPOx brand business” challenged by coxco West Ayumi | Forbes JAPAN Official Site (Forbes Japan)

I want to make society a little better with my favorite fashion. With this in mind, Ayumi Nishigawa founded the NPO DEAR ME, which is based in the Philippines. In addition to holding fashion shows where children living in impoverished areas act as models, the fashion school coxco Lab ( Cocolab)” is operated. In Japan, we are developing the apparel brand “coxco” that makes clothes using leftover fabrics and recycled materials. Working as both an NPO and an apparel business, we are working to solve social issues through fashion.

DEAR ME was launched when I was in my third year of university. Nishigawa, who has loved fashion since he was a child, used to save money from part-time jobs and travel abroad for his hobby of taking street snapshots around the world and making magazines. A step away from the gorgeous town where I was taking pictures, there were children who could not wear clothes satisfactorily in the area where I was staying. I learned that in any country or region, there is always a “darkness” behind the glittering streets.

“I was shocked to find that the environment in which I could fall in love with fashion was not something that I took for granted. After returning to Japan, I began to grope around to see if I could do something that would help children in an environment where they could not enjoy fashion, so that they could draw their dreams. When I did some research, I learned that the country with the most street children was the Philippines, so I gave up on the momentum and launched DEAR ME and started working on a fashion show.”

Winner of New York’s International Advertising Awards

In 2019, after leaving CyberAgent, which he joined as a new graduate, DEAR ME was registered as an NPO corporation. In the same year, he founded coxco. The concept of “media in the form of clothes” includes the desire to spread social issues such as environmental problems and employment through the medium of clothes. The purpose of launching the apparel business is to create employment opportunities for coxco Lab graduates, as well as the fact that through the seven years of DEAR ME activities, I felt that there was a limit to the sustainable activities of an NPO alone.

“By allocating a portion of the brand’s profits to NPO and school activity expenses, we can maintain sustainable operations, and by employing school graduates at coxco in the future, we can grow the brand. We will circulate the brand business and NPO activities. The way of thinking of company management and NPO management is completely different, but I am different whether it is just a company or an NPO.It is important to create an organization that properly considers both axes. I think that’s why I want to establish a proper world line first.There is almost no precedent for running an NPO and a business on both wheels, but I would like to spend my life working on it.”