Bal Harbour

C O U R T E S Y O F S C H I A PA R E L L I /J O H N P H I L L I P S / T I M E L I F E P I C T U R E S /G E T T Y I M AG E S hether it's Marc Jacobs's paper doll–like floating ensembles, Loewe's knitting needle–pierced garments, or Thom Browne's gender-bending deconstructed suits, runway fashion and spectacle have become inseparable. But long before social media virality, Italian couturière Elsa Schiaparelli was shocking the world with designs that injected whimsy, humor, and fine art into the industry like never before. "She wanted to make clothes that could surprise and delight. The same thing happens on today's red carpet," says Marie-Sophie Carron de la Carrière, chief curator of the fashion and textiles department at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. Alongside former museum director Olivier Gabet, Carron de la Carrière organized the recent exhibition "Shocking! The Surreal World of Elsa Schiaparelli," exploring the late designer's legacy and the house's current collections by Daniel Roseberry, who has served as its artistic director since 2019. "Schiaparelli was like an artist," says Carron de la Carrière. "She knew how to create a strong visual effect." Born in 1890 in Rome to an aristocratic family, Schiaparelli moved to London in 1913, where she married Count Wilhelm Wendt de Kerlor, a theosophist. The two lived in Nice and London before relocating to New York in 1916. While on the transatlantic ocean liner, Schiaparelli befriended Gabrielle Buffet-Picabia, Dadaist artist Francis Picabia's wife, who'd prove instrumental in forging Schiaparelli's connections to the fashion and art worlds, first introducing her to Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray. In 1922, separated from her husband, Schiaparelli and her daughter followed Buffet-Picabia to Paris, where she met renowned couturier Paul Poiret. He encouraged Schiaparelli to pursue a job in fashion and became her mentor. After a stint designing for small fashion house Maison Lambal, Schiaparelli launched her own label, presenting a highly successful collection of knitwear, including a black-and-white sweater with a trompe l'œil bow, in 1927. Undoubtedly inspired by the Surrealist circle, Schiaparelli later collaborated with its artists on many of her most famous pieces. Her prolific collaboration with Salvador Dalí began in 1935 and included the iconic Lobster dress, Shoe hat, and a suit whose pockets resembled bureau drawers. Roseberry has revisited furniture-inspired fashion in his Schiaparelli collections, as have other Surrealist-inclined houses such as Moschino, whose Fall/Winter 2022 ready-to-wear collection sent wearable grandfather clocks, lampshades, and Coromandel screens down the runway. Just as influential as her whimsical prints and extraordinary ornamentation was Schiaparelli's predilection for saturated hues. "Yves Saint Laurent recognized that she was a genius and was inspired to put different bright colors together," says Carron de la Carrière. The French designer also admired Schiaparelli's penchant for heavily embellished and impeccably tailored outerwear, as illustrated, for example, in the glittering Les Yeux d'Elsa jacket from his fall 1980 couture collection. Other fashion giants who drew inspiration from Schiaparelli include fellow illusion enthusiast Jean Paul Gaultier; Azzedine Alaïa, whose fall 1991 collection nodded to butterflies, just as the Italian designer's summer 1937 collection did (Schiaparelli's themed collections revolutionized fashion storytelling); and John Galliano, whose unconventional concepts for Christian Dior included a suit worn backwards. Roseberry has made Schiaparelli one of today's most coveted fashion houses once again, by resurrecting iconic archival designs—trompe l'œil sweaters, lobster motifs, gilded baroque scrolls, and body part-emblazoned accessories—and by employing his own bold take on her flair for exaggeration. Think: Spring 2023 couture's animal-head gowns; Spring 2024 couture's dress embellished with defunct calculators, CDs, and cell phones; and Fall 2024 couture's bustier dress with heel-inspired cups. While many contemporary labels channel a surreal-inflected sensibility, Carron de la Carrière believes that, outside of Roseberry, designer Maria Grazia Chiuri most embodies "the spirit of Elsa Schiaparelli and her feminine creations." Dior's creative director since 2016, Chiuri harnesses female artistry in nearly every collection, designing garments inspired by Surrealists like Dora Maar and Lee Miller, and collaborating with contemporary artists Judy Chicago and Mickalene Thomas on runway scenography. Carron de la Carrière adds, "Both [Chiuri and Schiaparelli] are from Rome. The cultural and historical significance of this city is so enormous that it [inevitably] became part of their personalities." With a legacy and iconography that has become ubiquitous in high fashion, Schiaparelli was not just ahead of her time, she's become an eternal creative muse, brilliantly blurring the line between dress and art. W "She wanted to make clothes that could surprise and delight." — M A R IE-SOPHIE CA R RON DE L A CA R R IÈR E The designer in her atelier, 1938 BALHAR B O U RSH O P S .CO M

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