Critical Fashion Practice: From Westwood to Van Beirendonck

There is a new form of design practice within the contemporary fashion industry which is active in complex forms of social commentary and critique. While fashion in the modernist era has shown signs of criticism and subversion, these were either in the form of subcultures or perversions, such as punk or BDSM styling. Today, however, these genres have been absorbed into the fashion industry itself, meaning that “critical fashion” is now far from limited to the subcultures from which it came....