On “Shocking! The Surreal World of Elsa Schiaparelli”
The exhibition celebrates the legendary couturier who masterfully blurred the lines between fashion and art.
In January 1927, an Italian aristocrat shocked the Parisian fashion scene with a hand-knit bow sweater. With amusing trompe l’oeil prints, her “radically simple and ingenious” knitwear collection became an instant success and launched the career of the unconventional couturier.
The sunburst with a pensive face is a large-scale reproduction of the illustration by Christian Bérard for the Phoebus cape (1938).
Elsa Schiaparelli was born in 1890 in the Palazzo Corsini in Rome into a family of intellectuals and aristocrats. An atypical, rebel woman who flouted conventions (her family sent her to a convent in Switzerland after she published a collection of erotic poetry, Arethusa), she had no formal training in garment making. Instead, she had a rich education in arts, literature, and style and a wealth of inspiring ties to acclaimed artists of her era.
“Shocking! The Surreal World of Elsa Schiaparelli” is on display until January 22, 2023, at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. The exhibition is an invitation to explore Elsa’s surreal world of boundless creativity and her collaborative approach to work, as well as discover her enduring legacy in the fashion landscape.
Elsa Schiaparelli in her hand-knit trompe l’oeil bow sweater.
As you walk up the stairs under the watchful eye of Phoebus, a gigantic reproduction of the namesake sunburst sketched by painter and illustrator Christian Bérard, excitement grows.
As soon as you step inside the Christine & Stephen A. Schwarzman fashion galleries at MAD, you are entirely immersed in Elsa Schiaparelli’s buzzing universe. There is Phoebus again, trapped in intricate embroidery on a Shocking pink cape. 6387 unsigned collection sketches cover the walls and the floor. A living memory of the couturier’s rich body of work, the drawings are careful reproductions of her designs, made by artists after the presentation of a collection. Gloves with apparent red nails or claws stretch out of the wall as the mirrored ceiling turns the room upside-down, luring you further into Schiaparelli’s psyche.
The whimsical scenography by Nathalie Crinière flows like a dream, threading past and present, fashion and art. Among Elsa Schiaparelli’s brilliant designs alternate present-day Schiaparelli and creations from iconic designers paying tribute to her work, but also photographs, illustrations, objets d’art, and furniture – all uniting in harmony.
Equipped with a strong visual and literary culture, Schiaparelli transcended the boundaries between art and fashion. Her inspiring collaborations with talented friends and artists – the Surrealists Man Ray, Jean Cocteau, Salvador Dalí, Meret Oppenheim, but also Alberto Giacometti, Jean Schlumberger, Jean-Michel Frank – provided Schiaparelli with unlimited stylistic expression in her avant-garde collections. From garment conception and perfume bottles to brooches, earrings, bracelets, and buttons representing mythological or feminine characters to fashion photography and interior design – Schiaparelli’s artistic universe is bold and expansive, honoring the work of celebrated artists of her generation.
The far end of the gallery on the first floor – which recreates the couturier’s boutique in Place Vendôme – is dedicated to Elsa Schiaparelli’s enduring friendship and collaboration with Salvador Dalí. Taking center stage in a glass case reigns an audacious summer dress made for the Duchess of Windsor. The white and peach-detailed design features a giant printed lobster which imbues it with erotic tension. Drawing upon Freud’s interpretation of dreams, the lobster has strong sexual connotations in Dalí’s universe.
The lobster summer dress was made for the Duchess of Windsor.
Their first fashion collaboration began when the Catalan artist offered Schiaparelli a drawing captioned “suit with semi-rigid and soft drawers, material imitation stripped chain, drawer pulls in natural oak – For Schiaparelli. Her friend Salvador Dalí, 1936”. The drawing and the bureau-drawer suits and coats it inspired are on display, as well as the Skeleton woman drawing and dress, the shoe hat, and Dalí’s famous Mae West lips couch, among many others.
All throughout, the exhibition celebrates Schiaparelli’s enduring influence on the fashion world and generations of designers she inspired, from John Galliano – who reinterpreted Schiaparelli’s print of collaged newspaper pages featuring her name into his “Gazette” newsprint – to Yves Saint Laurent, Sonia Rykiel, Azzedine Alaïa, and Christian Lacroix.
As you continue through the galleries, up the stairs and past the marvelous perfume bottles, you slowly enter contemporary Schiaparelli. At times, it’s hard to distinguish Roseberry from Elsa Schiaparelli, emphasizing her timeless genius but also that of her rightful successor. Yet, Daniel Roseberry, appointed artistic director of Schiaparelli in 2019, isn’t one to draw inspiration from the Maison’s archives. Instead, Roseberry’s designs are interpretations of Elsa’s abundant vision.
A legendary couturier, “a woman of today who lived in another era,” self-taught and free from the confines of traditional dressmaking, Elsa Schiaparelli redefined the modern woman’s wardrobe and gave her freedom of expression. She wasn’t afraid to explore “the shock of the new.” On the contrary, it delighted her.
It comes as no surprise that “amusing” is one of her favorite words. Indeed, the word enters your mind as soon as you step inside the exhibition. There is something inexorably joyful and playful, amusing, about Schiaparelli’s world. It gives license to have fun with fashion by going beyond fashion.
