Japan Fashion Now

Japan Fashion Now, curated by Valerie Steele, will take place at The Museum at FIT and explore how Japanese fashion has evolved in recent years. It appears to cover a wide spectrum of modern Japanese fashion. This is how the museum announces the exhibit:

Japanese fashion today embraces not only the cerebral, avant-garde looks associated with the first wave of Japanese design in the 1980s, but also a range of subcultural and youth-oriented styles, such as the Elegant Gothic Lolita style and the Cosplay phenomenon.

In addition, Japanese fashion often has a strong component of realism and an obsessive interest in perfecting classic styles.

Contemporary Japanese fashion is globally significant precisely because it mixes elements of realism, such as high-tech fabrics or creating a perfect pair of jeans, with both the avant-garde and pop cultural elements, especially those associated with electronic media, such as manga (animated cartoons) and video games.

The Museum at FIT is one of only a handful of museums in the world devoted to the art of fashion. The Museum was founded in 1967 to support the educational programs of the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), a college that is part of the State University of New York (SUNY) system.

Japan Fashion Now will take place at The Museum at FIT from September 17, 2010 through January 8, 2011.