More than one hundred extraordinary garments from the LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art) illustrate elegant and innovative contemporary fashion for women. Some forty fashion designers from all over the world take the viewer/reader on a journey through innovation both in technique and materials, where versatility in synthetic fibres and new methods of production is exploited to change the very concept of "silhouette". Franco Moschino, Christian Lacroix, Alexander McQueen, Vivienne Westwood, Thierry Mugler: these and many other couturiers from the past twenty years have redesigned the lines of fashion by going beyond material preciosity, unnatural geometric lines and the static nature of trimmings. All the canons based on conventional traditions that from the 1950s governed haute couture were overturned by the creative genius of these fashion designers who are in the process of making history in contemporary fashion.