Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Despite recent challenges from New York, London and Milan, Paris is renowned as the greatest fashion capital in the world. Its distinctive categorization of haute couture, demi-couture, and prt--porter reflects a highly structured and tightly controlled system that non-western designers have had difficulty penetrating. Yet a number of the most influential Japanese designers have broken into this scene and made a major impact. How?Paris couturiers and designers operate a gate-keeping system that is not only exclusive and rigorous but highly demanding. But, Kawamura asks, does the system facilitate or inhibit new forms of creativity? She shows how traditional 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. At the same time she considers many other key questions the contemporary fashion industry should be asking itself. Has it, for example, become primarily preoccupied with the commercial projection of product images rather than with the clothing itself? And what direction will French fashion take without Saint Laurent, Miyake and Kenzo?This insightful book provides the first in-depth study of the Japanese revolution in Paris fashion and raises provocative questions for the future of the industry.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Figures (p. vii)
• Tables (p. viii)
• Acknowledgments (p. ix)
• Introduction: Clothing and Fashion (p. 1)
• Part 1 Fashion Culture in France
• 1 Fashion Dominance in France: History and Institutions (p. 21)
• 2 The Modern Fashion System in France (p. 35)
• 3 The Global Diffusion Mechanism of Fashion: Past and Present (p. 57)
• 4 Social and Technical Differences among Haute Couture, Demi-Couture and Pret-a-Porter (p. 73)
• Part 2 Interdependence between Japanese Designers and the French Fashion System
• 5 The Japanese Fashion Phenomenon in Paris since 1970 (p. 91)
• 6 Type 1: Kenzo. Complete Assimilation into the French Fashion System (p. 113)
• 7 Type 2: Rei Kawakubo, Issey Miyake and Yohji Yamamoto. Construction of the Avant-Garde Japanese Fashion (p. 125)
• 8 Type 3: Hanae Mori. Attainment of the Ultimate Designer Status in Paris (p. 151)
• Conclusion: Paris as the Battlefield of Fashion (p. 163)
• Appendix A Research Design (p. 165)
• Appendix B Interview Schedule (p. 173)
• Appendix C Supplementary Tables (p. 175)
• Bibliography (p. 181)
• Index (p. 195)