ELSA SCHIAPARELLI THE QUEEN OF SARTORIAL SURREALISM

Elsa Schiaparelli was known as the Queen of Fashion; a headline attraction in the international glitter-glamour show of the late twenties and thirties, feted in Rome (where she was born), Paris, New York, London, Moscow, Hollywood . . .

Her style was a social revolution through clothing—luxurious, eccentric, ironic, sexy. Her fashions, inspired, from the whimsical to the most practical—from a Venetian cape of the commedia dell’arte to the Soviet parachute. Schiaparelli was the pioneer to use rayon and latex, thick velvets, transparent and waterproof, and cellophane.

The queen of sartorial surrealism, she was a close friend of Salvatore Dali, with whom she collaborated on the famed Lobster dress worn by Wallis Simpson in a 1937 issue of Vogue. Chanel, one of Schiaparelli’s competitors and contemporaries, reportedly called her “that Italian artist who makes clothes.” But Schiaparelli’s witty designs, from her shoe hat to her monkey fur heels to her skeleton dress, resonated with artists, eccentrics, actresses (Mae West and Marlene Dietrich were among her clients), socialites, and editors alike. And her influence on fashion has been unwavering.

Elsa Schiaparelli with Salvador Dali

The Avant Garde, Elsa Schiaparelli, 1930s Pop Culture And Fashion Magic

She was the first designer to use rayon and latex, thick velvets, transparent and waterproof, and cellophane. Her perfume—Shocking!—was a bottle in the shape of a bust sculpted by Léonor Fini, inspired by the body of Mae West. Her boutique at an eighteenth-century palace at 21 Place Vendôme opened into a cage designed by Jean-Michel Frank. American Vogue, in 1927, presented her entire collection as Works of Art. A decade later, she was the first European to win the Neiman Marcus Fashion Award.

1951, Finely Plisséd Dress opened into a Cocoon, by Elsa Schiaparelli

Elsa Schiaparelli hat designs, 1938. 

Coat, Elsa Schiaparelli, 1938

Evening dress, Elsa Schiaparelli - February 1936 - L'Officiel

Avant Garde couture

Elsa Schiaparelli died in 1973, but her maverick approach to fashion – one dress for the Duchess of Windsor featured a lobster painted by Salvador Dali – has made her a folk heroine to many contemporary designers, including Miuccia Prada and Marc Jacobs.

Sixty years after Elsa Schiaparelli presented her final show in 1954, the house of Schiaparelli has returned to the Paris catwalk. Diego Della Valle, the Italian tycoon who bought the brand in 2007, has hired designer Marco Zanini to give the kiss of life to the brand Zanini has described as "fashion's most attractive sleeping beauty", beginning with this summer's haute couture line.

Creations by designer Marco Zanini as part of the Schiaparelli haute couture fashion show in Paris