Barcelona Activa will train ten emerging fashion designers and brands

The Barcelona City Council, through Barcelona Activa, has launched the second edition of Barcelona Fashion Forward, a program that aims to promote and support emerging fashion designers and brands, specialized in the design, manufacture, and commercialization of textile products, footwear, or accessories.

The program is aimed at newly created companies or self-employed individuals in the textile sector, with market experience of between one and five years. It is designed for those professionals who want to boost their brand and improve skills such as management, commercialization, or communication of their products.

Barcelona Fashion Forward opened this Thursday the call for applications to participate, which will run until April 18. Out of all the companies or self-employed individuals who apply, ten will be selected for the first phase, who will receive group training and personalized mentoring for four months. Strategic marketing, e-commerce, finance, and communication through social networks will be some of the areas to be addressed.

At the end of this training period, the four best projects will be selected to access phase 2 of the program. The chosen companies or designers will receive personalized advice for a period of six months to develop a service plan, which will include a sales and communication showroom and support from a digital marketing agency, among other services.

More than 53 million in aid

Barcelona Activa has served a total of 55,506 people during 2020, 5.6% more than in 2019, and has allocated 53.4 million euros to aid, services, and projects. 52% of the budget has been allocated to protect employment and promote quality employment; 34% to strengthen entrepreneurship and business competitiveness; 7% to its proximity and social cohesion strategy, and the remaining 7% to digital training.

"We have focused on training, digitalization, and support for companies, and this year we are focusing even more on employment and economic reactivation," said the first deputy mayor for Economy, Labor, Competitiveness and Finance and president of Barcelona Activa, Jaume Collboni. "Most of the data in services and programs are higher than in 2019, a result of the effort made in providing services and also in rethinking them to adapt them to the context," he added.