“Japan Fashion Now” Book

New this week from YUP, Japan Fashion Now complements an exhibition now on view at the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology (through January 8, 2011).

Scholars have long acknowledged the significance of the Japanese “fashion revolution” of the 1980s, when avant-garde designers Issey Miyake, Yohji Yamamoto, and Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons introduced a radically new conception of fashion. But what has happened in the years since then?

Lavishly illustrated, Japan Fashion Now will be the first book to explore how Japanese fashion has evolved in recent years. During this time, Japanese pop culture has swept the world, as young people everywhere read manga, watch anime, and play video games. Japan has had a profound impact on global culture, often via new media.

With essays by Valerie Steele (“Is Japan Still the Future?”), Patricia Mears (“Fashion Revolution”), Hiroshi Narumi (“Japanese Street Style”), and Yuniya Kawamura (“Japanese Fashion Subcultures”), Japan Fashion Now explores how the world of fashion has been transformed by contemporary Japanese visual culture.

Valerie Steele is chief curator and director of The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology.  Patricia Mears is deputy director of The Museum at FIT. Yuniya Kawamura is associate professor of sociology at FIT. Hiroshi Narumi is associate professor at the Kyoto University of Art and Design.