Exploding Fashion examines the impact of innovative pattern-cutting in several key examples of 20th century fashion design. With over 200 illustrations, it 'explodes' designs by 6 game-changing fashion designers from the world's leading fashion houses, and reverse engineers them in order to understand how they work. Written by a curator and professor at Central Saint Martins, London's premier college of art and design, this is the first comprehensive exploration of how a traditional design process can enter into a dialogue with new concepts, illuminating haute couture and pret-a-porter methods for a visually-driven digital age.

A captivating photographic odyssey spanning fashion, Hollywood and travel, this is the first publication in almost 40 years on the work of George Hoyningen-Huene, the photographer whose images defined an era. Baron George Hoyningen-Huene (1900–1968), known simply as Huene, worked during the golden age of couture fashion and Hollywood cinema. He was born in St Petersburg to a wealthy family, but they had to flee their home during the Russian revolution in 1917. Huene spent time in England before moving to Paris, where he was employed to create photographs for Vogue and Vanity Fair and rapidly established himself as a visual innovator, fusing elements of neoclassicism and surrealism to create chic, arresting images. In 1935, Huene joined Harper’s Bazaar magazine, where he remained a contributor until 1946, following which he settled in California and embarked on a second career as a colour coordinator for Hollywood films. Supported by an international exhibition opening at Chanel Nexus Hall in Tokyo, this book combines elegant design and production values with rigorous new research and scholarship. Organized into eight chapters, each supported by texts by contributing writers from the worlds of fashion, cinema and photography, and featuring names and faces that have defined our view of style, glamour and grace in the 20th century, it reminds us of Huene’s position among the greats of photography.

In this timely book, three noted fashion historians examine the global transformations in the fashion industry today, and identify the challenges of the future. Since the dawn of designer fashion at the beginning of the 20th century, the role and position of the designer has drastically changed. This book addresses how the interpretation of creativity, authorship, craft, and innovation have evolved in this new context, and asks what role designers play in a globalised and digitised fashion world.