What would be considered as a Japanese contribution to fashion?

My brother in law works as an Business Development Manager in Tokyo. Everybody looks forward to him coming back home with Japanese Adidas gear, specially sweatsuits, and soccer clothing. The sweatsuit come in materials, colors and styles that do not make it to the US, don"t quite know why. Also the soccer jerseys are phenomenal.  There is also the whole Harajuku clothing scene, where teens imitate the clothing style of their favorite manga characters (Japanese Comics). These Neo Gothic styles are difficult to obtain stateside.

Hope this helps.

There is a lot of eccentric things to see in Japan. jguzman40 already named famous US brand which sells different design and color in Japan. but Nike or Adidas, isn't very exotic.

I'm thinking crazy hair fashion,  or just the guts to wear anything you can think of. unfortunately there is not a lot that is brought back from Japan. Japan is pretty self-sufficient in all areas.

But overall, Japan basically copies more fashion than creates any. Here I'm not talking about designers, but more the people I see around me. See, they are all a big fan of the western-idea. Although they super-idealize it, what they see in the magazine, they think that's what we wear everyday. And you are gonna see Japanese people dressed like rock star thinking that's what we're doing as well.

Punk's culture<backspace*7>fashion is also, very popular. However someone really needs to tell them in what kind of trouble American/European Punks are usually into. Here, it's just fashion.

Here are some

okinawa pictures that show lots about japan.

Ah, very sorry, should have pointed you to some of the interesting fashion I was referring to.

Obon Pictures - In Okinawa you are bound to see many Japanese dressed in traditional okinawa uniforms or other types of cutesy outfits.

Okinawan pictures - In Shinjuku, there is an entirely different type of fashion, that is more modern/hip/cool. If Akihaba has the nerds, this district has the "cool kids"

 Those are the two major districts that I know of, where Japanese fashion (beyond the normal jeans and a t-shit) really stand out. Hope that helps.

The Japanese Revolution in Paris Fashion* Yuniwa Kawamura ..      
*This excerpt from “The Japanese Revolution in Paris Fashion” (Berg 2004) was presented at the international symposium “Cultural Difference and the Creative Processes” held at the Surrey Institute of Art and Design University College in U.K. on February 6, 2004.
I would like to introduce five Japanese designers who are most famous in the West, especially in France. I will trace their background, characteristics of their designs and fabric and the philosophy behind their designs. First, I will talk about Kenzo, then the three avant-garde designers, namely Issey Miyake, Yohji Yamamoto and Rei Kawakubo of Commes des Garçons, and lastly, I will discuss Hanae Mori, the only Japanese couturière. KENZO:
Kenzo Takada, known simply as Kenzo, is the first Japanese designer to be recognized by French fashion professionals and is considered to be one of the most influential ready-to-wear designers. He was born in 1939 in Himeji, the southern part of the main island of Japan. By the time he was fifteen, he knew he wanted to make clothes. In 1961, after graduating from Bunka School of Fashion in Tokyo as one of the first male students, he worked as a company designer in Tokyo.
He recalls (Morris 1972: 23): ‘When I worked in Japan, it was no good for a designer. You had to follow European fashions.’ In 1964 he took off to Paris by boat initially intending to stay for six months. He arrived in Marseille on January 1, 1965. He remembers (Altman 1986: 12): ‘it was a life-changing experience. I knew right away I wanted to stay. And so I did. But not without worrying about money. My mother sent me money twice, and the third time I asked, she said no. That forced me to work.’ So he started to go around fashion houses and ready-to-wear companies selling his sketches, and one of the companies offered him a position. He worked as a company designer in Paris for four years and then decides to set up his own his own store.
Kenzo is famous for his combinations of plaids, flowers, checks and stripes. He combined scraps of fabrics he found at the flea market in Paris and scraps of Japanese fabrics. This was only because he could not afford to buy fabrics in yards or bolts. Kenzo made a stylistic contribution to the West as there was something Japanese in the way he reconstructed Western clothing. His designs have changed over the years, but many of his distinctive characteristics were never lost. The mixing of colors and fabrics and the quilting technique he used were all rooted in Japanese traditions. He realized that the ‘exotic’ elements were attractive to the French public, so he began to look elsewhere for other ethnic cultures. He also used straight lines without any darts and square shapes all which were derived from kimono that does not have any curves. Although he kept the Western conventions of the clothing system which would later be shattered by avant-garde Japanese designers, it was Kenzo who paved the way for other Japanese designers to come to Paris.
Many fashion authorities credit Kenzo with starting such trends as kimono sleeves, the layered look, folklore fashion, winter cotton, the explosion of bright colors, baggy pants and workers’ clothes (Dorsey 1976). As Kenzo’s biographer writes (Sainderichinn 1998: 17): ‘Kenzo is a magician of colour. Since the mid 1960s, when he moved from his native Japan to the city of Paris, he has devoted himself to the creation of wearable, vivacious clothing: a fashion without hierarchies.’ Kenzo, although not single-handedly, democratized fashion. The 1970s was the decade when fashion became more and more accessible, and many new ready-made designers, such as Sonia Rykiel, made a major contribution to this new movement
http://www.throughthesurface.com/symposium/kawamura.html

Imran

http://www.myjewelersplace.com