By Amie James

LONDON (Reuters Life!) - Put together your own couture-inspired 1950s dress and get Jimmy Choo to judge your shoe design as part of a new exhibition celebrating the birth of modern fashion at London's Victoria and Albert Museum.

Designs by Dior, Balenciaga and Givenchy are some of the highlights of "The Golden Age of Couture" exhibition which celebrates the explosion of creativity that spawned today's fashion industry in the decade after World War Two.

The exhibition marks the anniversary of Christian Dior's "New Look" launch in 1947, which the museum said marked the beginning of a 10-year period that Dior dubbed the "golden age".

Dior's designs were more voluptuous than the boxy, fabric-conserving shapes of the austere styles during the war when rationing restricted choice, the museum said.

The exhibition's assistant curator Eleri Lynn said New Look began a period of unparalleled creativity when designers like Cristobal Balenciaga, Pierre Balmain, Hubert de Givenchy and Dior all worked in the same city.

"It was a special time we wanted to commemorate," Lynn said. "The swinging 60s were on the horizon."

She said the show was aimed at a broad number of visitors, but would have specific appeal to fashion students and people who remember a decade, which saw such international stars as Audrey Hepburn stepping out in the must-have outfits of the day.

The exhibition allows visitors to follow the lives of the great couturiers and the houses they founded, and find out more about their training, careers and work. It explores the connections and events that link the earliest days of couture in Paris and London from 1947 through to 1957.

Alongside the tailored suits, petticoats and Dior's tight-fitting "Bar suit", the museum's Web site allows Internet surfers to submit a short video about "your" dress, create a couture-inspired 1950s frock or have your own shoe creation judged by footwear fashion phenomenon Jimmy Choo.

The interactive part of the exhibition also includes three short podcasts featuring interviews and insights into the era from the creative director at Hardy Amies, the family of high society couture client Lady Alexandra Dacre and Balenciaga's press officer Percy Savage.