Is fashion art? It’s a conversation you could go round the houses with – and people often do. Naysayers will argue that fashion’s inherently commercial, product-centred focus, seasonal fickleness and reliance on the human body to acquire its meaning (rather than hold its own as an object) disqualifies fashion from being perceived in the same regard as fine art. If the dress code of the upcoming Met Gala is anything to go by, though, the answer is that it damn well is!

Our stance is, of course, somewhat biased, but looking back across the annals of fashion history, there are just so many moments where fashion has presented itself with a critical self-awareness and sense of autonomous objecthood that rivals many revered contemporary art practices.

That’s not to say that all fashion can (or should) be appraised in line with the same criteria that we typically reserve for art, mind you. In certain cases, though, donning a curator’s cap and looking back on seminal fashion history moments through a more art historical lens illuminates not just how fab certain moments were of their own accord, but how significantly they’ve shaped the contours of just fashion, and culture at large. Here are some of the key fashion creators behind them.