Here are some of the most extravagant ingenious images ever created in art and in haute couture : fruits of love affair between fashion and surrealism . Their relationship began in the paris of the 1920's , when Surrealist artists experimented not only with the fine arts but with photography, film and costume design. They plundered the imagery of fashion for their paintings and graphic arts and in turn they raised fashion beyond the level of mere style to to an important expression of culture . Elsa Schiaparelli collaborated with Salvador Dali to make Surrealistic dresses that shocked her clients. Photographes Horst P. Horst, Cecil Beaton and George Hoyningen -Huene experimented with Surrealist techniques and produced an astonishingly creative counterpart in fashion photography to images of Giorgio de Chirico , Rene Magritte and Max Ernst. Illustartors Marcel Vertes and A.M. Cassandre also adopted imagery from Surrealism's pioneers - some of whom , like Dali, entered the field of fashion themselves.