The Future Beauty: 30 Years of Japanese Fashion exhibition at SAM highlights more than 100 garments, from the collection of the Kyoto Costume Institute, and includes celebrated designers such as Isseu Miyake, Rei Kawakubo, Yohji Yamamoto, Kenzo Takada, and Kosuke Tsumra alongside younger designers influenced by popular culture.

The special gallery is organized into thematic sections that explore characteristics and unique Japanese aesthetics. Each section reveals radical reinvention in defying fashion conventions, ranging from elegant to dynamic. 

This first-ever apparel exhibit for the museum's history is somewhat of an experiment about an experiment: an opportunity to view how two cultures embrace change artistically and metaphorically. There are a lot of similarities between Japanese fashion and Seattle in the past 30 years: the influence of mathematics, adventure, and entrepreneurship.