July 27, 2016
Game Changers: Reinventing the 20th century silhouette
The exhibition ‘Game Changers – Reinventing the 20th century silhouette’ looks at the groundbreaking work of fashion designer Cristóbal Balenciaga.
Balenciaga’s innovations in the middle of the 20th century created a radically new silhouettte, in which the body got freedom of movement and architectural volumes created a space around the body. In addition to this, influences from Japan, such as the kimono, liberated women from their tight corsets at the beginning of the 20th century. Fashion designers such as Madeleine Vionnet, Paul Poiret and Coco Chanel shaped this freedom in the 1920s – 1930s with technical innovations and modern ideas about feminity.
At the end of the 20th century, the boundaries of the female silhouette are further explored by Japanese and Belgian designers such as Issey Miyake, Yohji Yamamoto, Comme des Garçons, Ann Demeulemeester and Martin Margiela. They paved the way for new body shapes and abstract silhouettes and gave a new interpretation of what could be considered as fashion.
The central figure in the exhibition is the Basque fashion designer Cristóbal Balenciaga (1895-1972) who is seen as the pivotal figure between the two periods, the architect of innovation. His patterns and work are the central axis of the exhibition. Each of the other designers worked in their own way on similarly innovative ideas and shifted the boundaries of the classic feminine silhouette.
For further information: http://www.momu.be/en/tentoonstelling/game-changers.html