Fashion Game Changers ― Reinventing the 20th-century Silhouette

Fashion Game Changers traces radical innovations in Western fashion design from the beginning of the 20th century to the present.

Challenging the traditional silhouettes of their day, fashion designers such as Madeleine Vionnet and Cristóbal Balenciaga began to liberate the female body from the close-fitting hourglass forms which dominated European and American fashion, instead enveloping bodies in more autonomous garments which often took inspiration from beyond the West. As the century progressed, new generations of avant-garde designers from Rei Kawakubo to Martin Margiela further developed the ideas instigated by their predecessors to defy established notions of femininity in dress, creating space between body and garment. This way, a new relationship between body and dress emerged for the 21st century.

With over 200 images and commentaries from an international range of leading fashion curators and historians, this beautifully illustrated book showcases some of the most revolutionary silhouettes and innovative designs of over 100 years of fashion.

Karen Van Godtsenhoven is Exhibitions Curator at MoMu fashion museum in Antwerp, Belgium.

Miren Arzalluz is a fashion historian, freelance fashion curator and former head of collections at the Cristobal Balenciaga Foundation.

Kaat Debo is Director of MoMu fashion museum in Antwerp, Belgium.