Fashionista contributor Long Nguyen is the co-founder/style director of Flaunt.

REVIEW:
Curated by Valerie Steele, Director of the Museum at FIT, Japan Fashion Now–an exhibition extended through April 2, 2011–surveys the past 30 years of Japanese fashion with a comprehensive view of contemporary fashion in Japanese society. In Japan, fashion has always occupied a central role in delineating gender, social and political roles.

The exhibit starts with the Japanese revolution–from the designers who went to Paris in 1981 to showcase their unique creations–and moves on to the years of economic downturn that resulted in today’s youth oriented styles like Gothic Lolitas, Forest Girls, Bosozoku (biker punks), and Mambas. And those are only a few among the many diverse expressions of subcultures, depending on the areas where the kids hang out: Harajuku, Shinjuku, Shibuya or Akihabara.

The show demonstrated the incredible creativity of fashion in Japan.

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