Shock Wave: Japanese Fashion Design, 1980s-90s

This catalog accompanies the exhibition "Shock Wave: Japanese Fashion Design, 1980s-90s," organized by the Denver Art Museum and on view September 11, 2016-May 28, 2017.

In the last decades of the twentieth century, a handful of Japanese fashion designers in Paris shocked Europe with collections that upended long-held ideals of garment construction and feminine beauty and instituted the idea of fashion as an art form. Written by Denver Art Museum curator Florence Müller, Shock Wave features garments from six Japanese designers-Kansai Yamamoto, Kenzo Takada, Issey Miyake, Yohji Yamamoto, Rei Kawakubo, and Junya Watanabe, as well as clothing by European designers who responded to the provateurs’ East-meets-West aesthetic. The publication includes new photography of ensembles alongside iconic photos by some of the top fashion photographers of the time, as well as brief biographies of each of these powerhouse designers.

The catalog is available only at The Shops at the Denver Art Museum and online.

Shock Wave: Japanese Fashion Design, 1980s-90s
By Florence Müller with foreword by Christoph Heinrich and biographies by Jane Burke

70 pages, 11-3/4 x 8-1/4
31 color and 9 black and white illustrations
ISBN: 9780914738336
Soft Cover

Published by the Denver Art Museum, 2016.