Gallery: Course for the customers of tomorrow
These days, Kopenhagen Fur is host to 20 young students that are learning about sorting, mink breeding and bidding in the auction room.
Students from China, South Korea, United Kingdom etc., are visiting Kopenhagen Fur for a two-week period to learn about the company and the trade.
- The sorting and auction procedures courses is an offer we give to young people that in turn may be our customers sometime in the future. The course is very popular and unfortunately, some had to be put on a waiting list. I think that one of the reasons for the course being so popular is that the students are given a good insight into the entire production chain - from farm to customer.
Yesterday, on Monday, we visited a mink farm where the students saw a part of the farm process and today, they will learn about skin sorting and skin quality. This will give them a good foundation that they can build on later, says Sheila Wagner, who is responsible for the education at the sorting and auction procedures course.
The students are given the basic tools required to continue in the skin trade and they are also able to establish networks.
- The entire production chain is represented among the young students. We have a designer as well as students with a dressing background. We also have students with an insight in retail shops and so on. This course gives them an opportunity to create networks, that are only strengthened when they meet at fairs and other events, says Sheila Wagner.
The next generation
One of the young students is 26-year-old Donghyan Kim from South Korea, who is visiting Denmark for the first time. He is the third generation in his family to work in the skin trade. His grandfather, Heungjoon Kim, and later Donghyan's father, Taesoon Kim, began in the trade many years ago. The Kim family owns the retail company Keun Hwa Fur Co. Ltd. that operates in South Korea.
- It is very interesting to attend in this course. It is particularly interesting to gain an insight in the skin sorting process and the various skin qualities and I look forward to learn about the bidding in the auction room, says Donghyan Kim.
For 26-year-old Nagi Ninomiya from Japan, this marks her second visit to Denmark. However, this is the first time she is participating in the sorting and auction procedures course.
- I want to work in my father's company, Y. Ninomiya Ltd. I have been assisting him ever since I got my degree, she says.
Y. Ninomiya Ltd, is named after Yoshitake Ninomiya, who has worked in the trade for approx. 30 years and Nagi hopes that she can follow in her father's footsteps.
- It takes hard work to attend these courses. It is not easy but it is very interesting, she says.