The Global Impact of Japanese Fashion

Taking its cue from the exhibition "Kimono Refashioned" on view at the Asian Art Museum in San francisco from Feb. 8 to May 5, 2019 ( ), this program considers how kimono and other aspects of Japanese culture have inspired global fashion for over 150 years. In this lively discussion, panelists Miki Higasa, Patricia Mears and Masafumi Monden consider the influence of Japanese art and design on fashion, the impact of contemporary designers on the fashion industry and the relationship between high fashion and popular culture. Moderated by Dr. Karin Oen, associate curator of contemporary art.
Miki Higasa is the founder of Kaleidoscope Consulting, a brand strategy, marketing and communications consultancy specializing in fashion and design. Previously, she was an international press officer and special projects director at Comme des Garçons in Tokyo and New York for 16 years.
Patricia Mears has been a fashion curator for nearly 30 years, first at the Brooklyn Museum and then at The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology, where she is currently deputy director. She has organized more than 20 exhibitions and written numerous books, essays and articles on an array of fashion-related topics.
Masafumi Monden is a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Technology Sydney, Australia. The author of “Japanese Fashion Cultures: Dress and Gender in Contemporary Japan” (2015), he is currently working on a book about cultural imaginations of Japanese girlhood and boyhood as well as another on the cultural history of fashion and the body in Japan.