From 16 March - 14 August 2011 Belgium’s MoMu Fashion Museum is presenting the exhibition ‘UNRAVEL. Knitwear in fashion.’  The exhibition will introduce visitors to a wide variety of exquisite knitted garments and accessories from across past centuries, with a focus on high fashion pieces and their vernacular interpretations.

Top pieces by national and international designers and labels including Ann Salens, Vivienne Westwood, Sonia Rykiel, Missoni and historic couture pieces by Schiaparelli, Patou and Chanel, as well as more avant-garde and cutting edge pieces by established designers and newcomers on the international fashion scene, such as Sandra Backlund, Maison Martin Margiela and Mark Fast, will sit side by side to reveal the richness and diversity of knitwear in high fashion.

The exhibition will address the important decades of knitwear in fashion, demonstrating knitwear’s popularity both on and off the catwalk, and unravelling the changing status of the relationship between knitwear and fashion.

Thematically, it will showcase the various roles knitwear has played in social and fashion (r)evolutions and will address knitwear’s different and fluid association with comfort, wellbeing and chic.

With  ‘Unravel: Knitwear in Fashion’, MoMu and Woolmark proudly present a mix of contemporary and classic knitwear design houses, as well as young designers and historical garments. The exhibition will challenge certain established ideas and show that far from being old-fashioned and dowdy, knitting is highly versatile, luxurious and a continuing source of inspiration for high end fashion.

The exhibition catalogue will be published by the Fashion Museum and Lannoo Publishers.

The MoMu- Fashion Museum has a collection of over 25,000 items including clothing, shoes, accessories and lace. The policy is to collect historical costumes, the oldest pieces date back to the 16th century, as well as pieces by contemporary designers such as Dries Van Noten, Yohji Yamamoto, Bernhard Willhelm and Ann Demeulemeester, and to keep them in the best possible conditions.

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