joseph scissorhands: Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art

"For me dress designing is not a profession but an art". - Elsa Schiaparelli.

Having seen "Shocking ! Les mondes surréalistes d’Elsa Schiaparelli” at The Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris which ran from 2022-2023, it was interesting to also see Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art currently at the Victoria and Albert Museum for comparison. The V&A has a habit of taking popular Parisian fashion exhibitions and transposing them to London, but making certain changes to allow for more relevancy to a British audience. See previous posts on Dior (here), and Chanel (here), both of which originated in Parisian museums. "Shocking ! Les mondes surréalistes d’Elsa Schiaparelli” at The Musée des Arts Décoratifs was a stunningly comprehensive exhibition packed full of original outfits not only by Schiaparelli herself, but also by new creative director Daniel Roseberry. The V&A variant is lower on volume of outfits by both Schiaparelli and Roseberry, but is beautifully and perhaps more interestingly staged and presented. Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art is the first Schiaparelli exhibition to be staged in the UK and enlightens us about the London branch of Schiaparelli which existed at 6 Upper Grosvenor Street, Mayfair, opening in 1934. Elsa Schiaparelli (1890-1973), was born into an aristocratic background, and started her fashion career with no formal training in pattern making or technical skills of clothing construction after an introduction in Paris to renowned couturier Paul Poiret (previously here), through Gaby Picabia, the wife of artist Francis Picabia. Poiret encouraged Schiaparelli in her instinctive method of dressmaking, draping fabrics directly on the body, and to start her own first short-lived business in1926. The following year Schiaparelli launched a collection of knitwear featuring surrealist trompe-l'œil images. These designs were featured in Vogue magazine and the designs with bows knitted onto the front of sweaters proved to be very popular. Sales enabled Schiaparelli to expand her range the next year adding bathing suits, ski-wear, and linen dresses before eventually evening wear to the collections in 1931. In 1935 Schiaparelli moved from Rue de la Paix acquiring the renowned salon of Louise Chéruit at 21 Place Vendôme, which was rechristened the Schiap Shop and has been home to the brand ever since. Schiaparelli is known for the touches of surrealism in her designs and playful vision towards fashion design in general. Like Paul Poiret, Schiaparelli moved in artistic Parisian circles, meeting important artists such as Man Ray, Max Ernst, and Meret Oppenheim. The eccentricities in her designs were fed by and encouraged through her artistic collaborations with these Dada and Surrealist artists who were predominant in Paris of the 1930s. Schiaparelli's touches of whimsy and surrealism distinguished her designs from those of her greatest rival Coco Chanel. One such collaboration was with with artist Jean Cocteau in 1937 with whom she designed the long evening coat on the back of which are two facial profiles facing each other. The faces also create an optical illusion forming a vase which overflows with fabric roses spilling down the shoulders of the coat. Another garment collaborated on was the grey evening jacket featuring the heavy embroidery of a woman's arm which appears to encircle and caress the wearer and has golden blonde locks of hair tumbling down one of the sleeves. The exquisite embroidery for both items was created by legendary haute couture atelier Maison Lesage (more of which here). Both of these designs are featured in this exhibition, and it a pleasure to see the quality of the superlative needlework up close. Salvador Dali was perhaps the artist for which Schiaparelli was most famous for collaborating with. Together they created such iconic fashion pieces as the Drinks Jacket (sadly not featured here, but was present in the Paris version of the exhibition, the Shoe Hat (a version with red heel is displayed here), and the Lobster, Tear and Skeleton dresses all pictured below. The Lobster Dress is a white evening dress with a crimson waistband on to the skirt of which silk designer Paul Sache has painted a large lobster. Wallis Simpson was photographed wearing it by Cecil Beaton, and displayed next to it is Dali's surrealist Lobster Telephone of 1936. The Tears Dress features trompe-l'œil rips of fabric as though the wearer has just been mauled, and is worn with a long veil with "real" tears carefully cut out and lined in pink and magenta. The Skeleton Dress was also created for the 1938 Circus Collection. It is a black crepe dress with trapunto quilting to create a disturbing set of padded ribs, spine and leg bones which stand out on the piece to eerie effect. The curators have displayed it cleverly so that we see the front of the dress at the opening of the exhibition and can then examine the back of the dress about half way through. It is believed to be one of only a few that survive and is considered to be fragile to travel so visitors to the exhibition are very privileged to be able to see it up close. There is a rare version of one of Schiaparelli's Shoe Hats on display too with a velvet heel in her signature Shocking Pink colourway. This idea came about from a picture of Dali with one of his wife Gala's slippers on his head. He created sketched designs for a shoe hat which Schiaparelli subsequently created with the heel standing up on top of the head whilst the front toe section tilted over the wearers forehead. Another signature aspect of Schiaparelli's designs are those of the buttons for her clothes. There is a section featuring several of her jackets on which you can see her quirky, fun button designs in the forms of acrobats or carrots. The beginning of the end for the Schiaparelli brand came with the arrival of war across Europe. With the fall of Paris to German troops in 1940, Schiaparelli sailed to New York and lectured until the end of the war. On her return to Paris her fashion house struggled with the effects of post-war austerity and the change in fashion styles. Dior's "New Look" dominated the fashion landscape and Schiaparelli was forced to close the couture brand in 1951 and wind down the business with large debts in 1954. The Schiaparelli name was purchased in 2007 and in 2019 Daniel Roseberry was appointed creative head and has since revived the brand to much acclaim continuing Elsa's riffs on surrealism with the dresses and accessories. The Texan-born designer became the first American to head a French couture house – mirroring Elsa’s status as an outsider in Paris’ fashion circles a century earlier. Roseberry is represented here with a stunning ensemble of dresses presented together in the middle and last rooms of the exhibition demonstrating how well he is able to reinterpret the surrealist DNA of the brand and bring his own design talents into play. A Roseberry standout include the red gown with the ruby slipper attached to the back worn by Ariana Grande to the 2025 Oscars, an homage to the 1937-38 Schiaparelli/Dali collaboration shoe hat. Augmenting the exhibition are paintings by Picasso, a portrait of Nusch Eluard wearing Schiaparelli, and a wonderful portrait by Dali. Having had a fraught relationship with her family who as a young girl made her feel self-conscious about her appearance Schiaparelli once inserted flower seeds into her ears, mouth and nose — hoping that when they blossomed she would take on their beauty. This story is aptly surreal story is the inspiration a lovely painting of a female figure with her foliate head in full bloom also on display. Other art is provided by Leonor Fini, Dora Maar, Meret Oppenheim and Eileen Agar. There are photographs too, by Louise Dahl Wolfe, Man Ray, Cecil Beaton and Horst P. Horst, and Rachael Lee. The curators have a done a fantastic job with the presentation of the exhibition which is pervaded with an air of surreality with deep shadowy figures striking poses behind the gowns and shifting lights strobing across the dresses to give a sense of movement and a slight sense of disorientation. The section devoted to Schiaparelli perfumes is a favourite, luxuriously displayed with gold fur on the walls recreating the Schiaparelli perfume boutique, designed by Jean-Michel Frank. Newly introduced perfumes had become big money-spinners for fashion designers in the 20s and 30s.Schiaparelli was not as well known as her French peers in the world of fashion Her surrealist excess was an opportunity to escape into a world of fantasy through dress, it was an imaginative defiance against conservatism of the fashion industry of the 1930s. This exhibition highlights Schiaparelli as the most imaginative and witty dressmaker of her generation. It is good then that the Schiaparelli name is being given a second lease of life through the work of the talented Daniel Roseberry.

"In difficult times fashion is always outrageous". - Elsa Schiaparelli.