Exploding Fashion: Making, Unmaking, and Remaking Twentieth Century Fashion

• Unprecedented insight into the role of innovative pattern-cutting in contemporary fashion design
• Written by a professor at the world-renowned art and design college Central Saint Martins, and developed in collaboration with the fashion programme there
• Includes over 200 illustrations, including key dress designs, photo-collages, innovative pattern-cuttings, pencil drawings and installation views

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 dialog with new concepts, illuminating haute couture and prêt-à-porter methods for a visually-driven digital age.

Alistair O'Neill is a writer, curator and professor of Fashion History and Theory at Central Saint Martins (UAL). He is a member of the UAL Photography and the Archive Research Centre and sits on the editorial board of Fashion Theory. Since the implementation of its contemporary exhibitions program in 2008, he has been working as a curatorial consultant for Somerset House Trust, focusing on its fashion exhibitions. His research interests include 20th-century and contemporary fashion; fashion photography in relation to visual culture; fashion curation and histories of display; London as a centre for fashion cultures.