Hands-On Fashion (Mãos à Moda)

The Mos à Moda – “Hands-on” Fashion Project is a Project created by Sebrae Minas, in order to give visibility to authorial fashion in the state, and to help promote a vision of the identity diversity of this productive chain, which is so expressive and full of creative businesses.

Mãos à Moda – Almenara Edition is the first project in the state, highlighting the riches of this municipality in the middle of the Jequitinhonha Valley, whose name means “Lighthouse”, and which encapsulates a living culture that emerges from the waters of the Jequitinhonha River, and that reflects the creativity of its people.

With a methodology co-created with Raízes, the project aims at economic dynamization, income generation, and social innovation through the fashion production chain in the municipality of Almenara. It does so by integrating local wealth, fostering the strengthening of the fashion production chain, innovation, and the creation of new individual or collective entrepreneurs. It starts from the following premises:

• The transforming Force comes from the Territory and not from outside it;

• The Project is co-created with the beneficiaries and partners;

• Focus on entrepreneurship and local leading roles;

• Valuing identity, knowledge, traditional crafts, and local potentials;

• Adoption of the best socio-environmental practices;

• Vision of real transformation and sustainability;

The project also aims to provide opportunities for qualification and foster an entrepreneurial environment through the fashion production chain in the city, providing real connections with the market. This materiality is built throughout the project by considering all the specificities of the target audience and the territory, knowing that projects of this nature bring, above all, processes of change in culture and vision of the future and that these changes do not occur in the short term, so consistency is needed so that they are effectively sustained.

Thus, the methodology developed foresees the realization in 05 stages over a period of 24 months:

• Mapping of the territory;

• Training for production and management of fashion business;

• Innovation Lab;

• Business selection and incubation

• Market access.