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.

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

Barbara Coutinho is Director of MUDE (Museum of Design and Fashion) in Lisbon, Portugal.

1. Fashion Game Changers: Where MoMu and MUDE Meet, Kaat Debo and Barbara Coutinho

2. Avant-garde Vision: Cristóbal Balenciaga's Innovation and Influence, Miren Arzalluz

3. Self-taught and Experimental: A New Approach to the Body, Karen Van Godtsenhoven

4. Kindred Spirits: Japanese and Belgian Designers in the MUDE Collection, Anabela Becho

5. Japonism in Western Fashion: Revolution in Silhouette from Poiret to Yamamoto, Akiko Fukai

6. Innovation in French Couture: The Radical Becomes Classic, from Callot Soeurs to Chanel, Olivier Saillard

7. Cultural Liberation Springing from Physical Liberation: Reception Study of the 1980s Avant-garde, Hettie Judah

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements