Series Overview
Focusing on designers such as Issey Miyake, Rei Kawakubo, and Yohji Yamamoto, this series examines how Japanese designers have been discussed, evaluated, and positioned within Paris as a field of cultural production, through the lens of sociology and cultural theory.
Introduction: Opening the Series
An alternative way of reading fashion.Read →
Episode 1: Who Were the Japanese Designers Challenging Paris?
There was a time when people said, “Japanese clothing would not be accepted.”Read →
Episode 2: “Japonisme” and the Allure of Japan
Exploring how fashion was influenced by Japonisme from the late nineteenth century onward.Read →
Episode 3: What Does “Japan as Seen” Mean?
A Foucauldian Perspective on the Politics of the GazeRead →
Episode 4: Kimono as Represented by Western Designers
A examination of the impact of late 19th-century Japonisme on Western fashion.Read →
Episode 5: Constructing “Japaneseness” in Fashion Media
How Western media in the 1980s framed Japanese designers as exotic others.Read →
Episode 6: Discomfort with the Label “Japanese Designer"
Resistance to National Labels and the Assertion of Individual CreativityRead →
Episode 7: Can Cultural Identity Be Fixed?
Learning from Stuart Hall: A Non-Essentialist PerspectiveRead →
Episode 8: Is Paris Fashion Week Truly a Meritocracy?
Paris Fashion Week as a Site of StruggleRead →
Episode 9: The Structure of the French Fashion World
From Bourdieu’s Theory of the FieldRead →
Episode 10: Anti-Couture as a Position (Part I)
Power Relations in the Field of FashionRead →
Episode 11: Anti-Couture as a Position (Part Ⅱ)
Black Garments that Disrupted the Aesthetic Order of ParisRead →
Episode 12: 'Japanese' Positioning
Strategically Incorporating Cultural DifferenceRead →
Episode 13: 'Feminine' Positioning
How Can Marginality Become a Weapon?Read →