“Dress designing, incidentally, is to me not a profession but an art.”*
Elsa Schiaparelli, Paris, 1934, Photo by Man Ray, Courtesy of Getty Museum
Shocking, timeless, avant garde… These are few words to describe Elsa Schiaparelli and her designs. Elsa Schiaparelli is one of the most influencer designer in fashion history. Her timeless works, where art and design intertwined, still continue to preserve its importance. With the new retrospective titled "Shocking ! Les Mondes Surréalistes d’Elsa Schiaparelli” (Shocking! The Surreal World of Elsa Schiaparelli) at Musée Arts Décoratifs in Paris, we enter her world that combines art and fashion.
The question of “Is Fashion an art form?” has become a hot topic of discussion with Yves Saint Laurent’s 25th anniversary retrospective opened in 1983 at the Costume Institute of The Metropolitan Museum of Art New York.
Before this retrospective, only historical garments were displayed at fashion related exhibitions. But with the retrospective of Yves Saint Laurent important art museums started to include fashion exhibitions featuring contemporary garments in their calendars. While the debate around is fashion is an art form or not still continues, Elsa Schiaparelli and her designs that blur the boundaries between fashion and art are a proof that these two fields are inseparable. This to me is the most intriguing aspect of Elsa Schiaparelli retrospective.
Shocking ! Les Mondes Surréalistes d’Elsa Schiaparelli displays 212 pieces garments and jewelry designed by Elsa Schiaparelli, along with iconic paintings sculptures, jewelry, perfumes, ceramics, posters and photography by her avant garde friends Man Ray, Salvador Dali, Jean Cocteau, Meret Oppenheim and Elsa Triolet. Even the way Schiaparelli’s designs are being exhibited is a prove that her works cannot be separated from the art of that time.
Elsa Schiaparelli, detail from the cape “Phoebus”, Winter 1937-1938, Courtesy of Musée Arts Décoratifs
Elsa Schiaparelli was born on September 10, 1890 in Rome. Elsa comes from a noble and an intellectual family. Her mother was related to the Medici family and his father was a professor of Oriental Literature at University of Rome. Since her childhood, she portraits a girl who think out side the box and doesn’t mind breaking the rules. After finishing high school, she enrolls to University of Rome to study philosophy. In 1911, she publishes her first book Arethusa which includes her erotic poems. The book attracts the reaction of her family because of it she is sent to convert. At age 22, she took a baby sitting job and moved to London. She wanted to escape her families oppressions and wanted to see the world.
During her time in London, she frequently visits museums and attends lectures at the universities to cultivate herself intellectually. Elsa meets future husband professor Count Wilhelm de Wendt de Kerlor in one of his lectures on theology and they decide to get married with in 24 hours. Even though her family is against this marriage, she moves to Nice where she will live with Kelor and his family. Before moving to New York in 1916, the couple lives in Paris, Cannes and Monte Carlo. Elsa, who is also interested in theology, spends her days in New York as her husbands assistant. After Count Wilhelm de Wendt de Kerlor leaves Elsa, she decides to take her daughter and start a new life in Paris.
While one of her transatlantic voyages from New York to Paris, she meets Francis Picabia’s wife, Gabriel Picabia, and became close friends. They continue their friendship in New York and Paris. In 1922, when she moves to Paris,Elsa becomes a part of the Surrealists group. At this time she is not interested in fashion in a professional way. In Paris she gets invited to a ball. She does not have the money to buy a dress for the event so she goes to Galeries Lafayette and buys a navy fabric. Because she doesn’t know how to sew, she pins the fabric to make a dress. Later taht evening at the ball the dress falls a part while she is dancing. Although she is in the danger of being naked, she becomes the most remarkable woman in the ball because of her unusual dress…
Schiaparelli’s close friends are not just the Surrealists. Elsa has a wide social circle. One day while accompanying a wealthy American friend for shopping in Paris she meets with the first Couturier Paul Pioret at his boutique. She tries on Pioret’s designs even though she cannot afford them. Seeing Elsa’s unusual beauty, Pioret gives her some of his designs. With then friendship that came after this acquaintance and Pioret’s support she started her career as a fashion designer.
The turning point of Elsa’s career is when one of her knitted sweater design was included at Vogue in 1927. Influenced by Surrealist’s trompe l'oeil images, she designs a hand knitted sweater with a white bow pattern. This is the first of many surrealist designs of her… At this point, we can say that she writes her own rules in fashion. In 1934, she becomes the first women designer to be on the cover of Time magazine. The article mentions Schiaparelli as “ one of the arbiters of ultura-modern haute couture”.
Elsa Schiaparelli wearing her trompe l’oeil sweater, 1927, Maison Schiaparelli
With the year 1935, Elsa collaborates with her close friend Salvador Dali for her several designs. The first collaboration is a compact powder which is shaped like telephone dial. In 1937, Schiaparelli sees a photo of Dali wearing his wife’s Gala’s heels as a hat on his head and designs the “Shoe Hat”. One with a black velvet heel and one the other one with a pink heel are worn by movie stars and famous figures such as Duchess of Windsor Wallis Simpson.
Elsa Schiaparelli Salvador Dali collaboration, compact powder, 1935, Courtesy of Musée Des Arts Décoratifs
In 1938, Schiaparelli designs the “Tear Dress”, inspired bu Salvador Dali’s "Three Young Surrealist Women Holding in Their Arms the Skins of an Orchestra" (1936). The dress refers to the torn flesh of the women in the painting. The fuchsia pink pieces seen through the white fabric resemble to human flesh, many fashion critics consider this design as Elsa’s reaction to fascism and the world wars she herself lived through.
Elsa Schiaparelli Salvador Dali collaboration, The Tear Dress, 1938, V&A Collection
Same year, Schiaparelli is one again inspired from Dali’s painting and collaborated withe the artist for the “Skeleton Dress” in “Le Cirque” collection. Like her previous designs, she turns the body inside out and she reliefs the human skeleton on black crepe dress bringing the skeleton above the skin. Another important factor of this design is the zip detail that is used for get in and out of the dress. This plastic zipper on the right side shoulder allows the dress to be worn as if it is a diving suit. Beacuse of the tightness of the dress and the fact that it the whole body, including the hands, makes the dress as a second skin on the wearer. The Skeleton Dress, which caused a lot of controversies in the 1930s and was thought not to fit into the evening dress classification. With its with its design and the choice of material, Skeleton Dress is is one of the most important example of Elsa Schiaparelli's avant-garde thinking and design style.
Elsa Schiaparelli Salvador Dali collaboration, the Skeleton Dress, 1938, Fashion History Timeline
Her collaborations are not limited to Salvador Dali. In 1937, Schiaparelli collaborates with avant garde poet, Jean Cocteau to design trompe l’oeil style evening jackets. The one jacket with an embroidery of two silhouettes facing with pink roses on the shoulders and at the same time a vase silhouette resembling a vase in the middle the two faces, is one of the important piece in the collection. Between 1938-1939 Alberto Giacometti designs buttons for Schiaparelli’s jackets.
Elsa Schiaparelli Jean Cocteau collaboration, Evening Coat, Autumn 1937, Courtesy of Musée Des Arts
Influenced by the hands Picasso painted in the form of gloves for Man Ray’s photographs, Schiaparelli designs a series of leather and suede gloves with human and animal nails. Meret Oppenheim, how also worked for Schiaparelli in the past, gets inspired from these gloves. Oppenheim creates a series with gloves where she adds silkscreen printing of veins or wooden fingers that questions the perception of the body and where both the body and the garment ends. As you can see, Schiaparelli’s designs are not limited to her collaborations with artists or her inspirations from art; she also inspires artists with her fashion designs.
Left: Hand Painted by Picasso, 1935, Photograph by Man Ray
Right: Schiaparelli Haute Couture Winter 1936-1937, Artland Magazine
Schiaparelli’s designs redefines what and who the fashion is for. The garments that she designs goes beyond their intended use and turn into works of art. With the surreal world she creates, she inspires designers in next generations. Shocking! Les Mondes Surréalistes D'Elsa Schiaparelli also includes clothes designed by prominent fashion designers such as; Yves Saint Laurent, Azzedine Alaïa, John Galliano and Christian Lacroix. The garments were inspired by the designs of Elsa Schiaparelli which shows that the influence of Schiaparelli's world continued after her. In 1935, Schiaparelli turns collage for newspaper articles about her into fabric and created shirts and hats. Inspired by the newspaper-like fabrics, John Galliano designs a collection with newspaper-like fabrics for Christian Dior in 2000. The dress designed by Galliano, which is on display at the retrospective at the Musée Des Arts Décoratifs, still maintains its importance today, as it was worn by actress Sarah Jessica Parker in Sex and The City, 2010. Yves Saint Laurent’s blue velvet jacket from his collection 1980, is part of the exhibition as well. The jacket embroidered with a pair of eyes and has the inscription "Les Yeux d'Elsa" [Elsa's Eyes] which is the title of a poem by Louis Aragon. This garment is a thoughtful homage to both Elsa Schiaparelli and the Zodiac collection that Schiaparelli presented in 1938-39, with the star motifs embroidered on the jacket.
The final part of the exhibition reveals how Daniel Roseberry, who has been the creative director of Schiaparelli fashion house since 2019, received and interpreted the legacy of Elsa Schiaparelli. Roseberry is highly praised for his reinterpretation of the avant-garde designs of Elsa Schiaparelli. The last part of the exhibition shows us how Schiaparelli's legacy has been preserved and adapted to the present.
Daniel Roseberry, Look 6, Autumn Winter 2021-2022
Elsa Schiaparelli’s influences in fashion and art history are countless. Her biggest rival Coco Chanel describes her as “that Italian artist who makes dresses” and as to say since the late 1920s she has been making dresses that shock the world. Elsa sees dress making as an art form not a job and instead of following the rules, she makes her dreams come to reality. Shocking! Les Mondes Surréalistes D’Elsa Schiaparelli is open until January 22, 2023. The exhibition not only describes Schiaparelli’s design process thematically and chronologically, but also reveals the impact of her designs that lasted til this day.
Reference
*Elsa Schiaparelli, “Shocking Life: The Autobiography of Elsa Schiaparelli”,V&A Publishing, 2018
Musée Des Arts Décoratifs, "Shocking! Les Mondes Surréalistes D’Elsa Schiaparelli”
Caroline Galambosova, “The Forgotten Couturier Elsa Schiaparelli: Surrealism, Art and Revolutionary Fashion”, Daily Art Magazine, Aralık 2022
“İkonografi: Elsa Schiaparelli”, İstanbul Moda Akademisi
Abigail Cain, “Fashion Designer Elsa Schiaparelli Made Dali’s Art Wearable”, Artsy, December 2017
Ella Plevin, “”The Tear Dress” By Elsa Schiaparelli and Salvador Dali”, Spike Art Magazine, Spring 2018
Sung Bok Kim “Is Fashion Art?”, Fashion Theory Volume 2, Issue 1, pp 51-72
** This article was published in Manifold on October 1, 2022.
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