Western fashion has been widely appreciated and consumed in Tokyo for decades, but since the mid-1990s Japanese youth have been playing a crucial role in forming their own unique fashion communities and producing creative styles which have had a major impact on fashion globally.

Geographically and stylistically defined, subcultures such as Lolita in Harajuku, Gyaru and Gyaru-o in Shibuya, Age-jo in Shinjuku, and Mori Girl in Kouenji, reflect the affiliation and identities of their members, and have often blurred the boundary between professionals and amateurs for models,...

Paris is renowned as the greatest fashion capital in the world. It has a rigid and tightly controlled system that non-western designers have difficulty penetrating. Yet a number of the most influential Japanese designers have broken into this scene and made a major impact. How? Kawamura shows how French fashion has been both disturbed and strengthened by the addition of "outside" forces such as Kenzo Takada, Issey Miyake, Yohji Yamamoto, Rei Kawakubo, and Hanae Mori. She considers many other key questions the fashion industry should be asking itself. Does the system facilitate or inhibit...