WWD New Exhibition Spotlights the Woman Behind the Schiaparelli Label

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FASHION / FASHION FEATURES New Exhibition Spotlights the Woman Behind the Schiaparelli Label The show at the Musee des Arts Decoratifs in Paris explores the life of Elsa Schiaparelli through her work with artists like Salvador Dali By JOELLE DIDERICH (+ JULY 1, 2022, 1:00AM VIEW ALL 1 PHOTOS PARIS - Schiaparelli, the historic Paris couture house enjoying a revival under creative director Daniel Roseberry, wants you to know more about the woman who founded the brand almost a century ago. The house, now owned by Italian entrepreneur Diego Della Valle, has partnered with the Musee des Arts Decoratifs in Paris on an exhibition titled "Shocking! The + surreal world of Elsa Schiaparelli," the most significant retrospective dedicated to the Italian couturier in nearly two decades. To illustrate her creative influence, the show features works by renowned artists who collaborated with Schiaparelli, including Salvador Dali, Leonor Fini, Man Ray and Jean Cocteau, as well as outfits by the many designers she's influenced, such as Azzedine Alaia, Yves Saint Laurent, John Galliano and Roseberry himself.\f\fpart of a collective reappraisal of women artists who did not always receive due recognition during their lifetime. \"Elsa Schiaparelli was a fashion designer who was considered an equal by the leading artists of her time." he said. \"But Dali and hian Ray don't mention her in their memoirs, even though she mentions them in hers. Female creators were invisible, in a way. and shes not the only one who was treated that way. It was the same for i'vieret Dppenheim and Leonor Fini. For a very long time. the history of art was very masculine." he noted. in a sign of change, Uppenheim will be the subject of an exhibition at the Museum of Modern art in New York City next October. while a leading museum in Paris is said to be preparing a retrospective on Fini. who created the bottle for Schiaparelli's signature fragrance Shocking. .-l. pioneer of the art collaborations rampant in fashion today, Schiaparelli was generous in sharing credit for her creations. as evidenced by a jacket in the exhibition that featured an embroidered face designed by Cocteau with the signature \"Jean" prominently featured beneath. \"As a designer, she had a very different relationship to art that some of her contemporaric 5. like Jeanne Lanvin and Coco Chanel. They were su1vivors. They fought to get where they were," Gabet said. \"W hen you grow up in a Baroque palace, surrounded by Italian Renaissance and Classical Antiquity, intellectually, it's reflected in the collections.\" Schiaparelli's father was an academic specialized in the islarnic world and the Middle Ages. while her uncle was a renowned astronomer. \"Her contemporaries were tapping artists to design their stores or create graphic design, but certainly not to be invited into the space of fashion design itself." Gabet noted. Marie-Sophie Carron de la Carriere, who curated the exhibition with Gabet, said Schiaparelli's relationship with artists provided the gateway to her future clientele. She dressed Gala Dali. who is shown in a photograph wearing her infamous shoe hat, and Nusch luard, the wife of poet Paul luard. one of the founders of the Surrealist movement. A portrait by Pablo Picasso, featured in the exhibition, shows Nusch dressed in Schiaparelli, with jewels by Jean Schlumberger, who began his career at the house before gaining fame for his designs at Tiffany & Co. Alongside it hangs a jacket designed by Saint Laurent, inspired by the painting. George Platt Lynes - Salvador Dali, 1939. @ ESTATE OF GEORGE PLATT LYNES/COURTESY OF MUSEE DES ARTS DECORATIFS The exhibition is full of such cross-references. It shows how Schiaparelli and Dali originated the newspaper print that later would inspire Galliano's signature gazette motif. The Surrealist painter collaborated with Schiaparelli on her most famous dress, featuring a hand-painted lobster, famously worn by Wallis Simpson. More intriguing still is the Tears Dress, displayed alongside Dali's 1936 painting "Three Young Surrealist Women Holding in Their Arms the Skins of an Orchestra." Printed with a trompe-l'oeil motif, it creates the illusion of strips of flesh, prefiguring the punk movement by several decades. Carron de la Carriere said the designer's recurring use of pink, including her signature Shocking Pink, was steeped in the provocative images of Surrealist art. "Everything is based on the color of skin," she said. "The lobster dress is also about female flesh, the female genital organ. It's a celebration of a femininity that is both hidden and alluring."The exhibition highlights Schiaparelli's pioneering mix of high and low references, via objects like perfume bottles shaped like a pipe, or a bottle of Champagne. Aside from her last fragrance, Zut, all her perfumes had names beginning with the letter "We wanted to show what a visual merchandising mastermind she was, before that notion even existed,"Bellini said. "She was the queen of the concept." The large-scale show of Schiaparelli's work is made possible by the fact that she donated her archives to the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the French Union of Costume Arts before she died. The latter collection, managed by the MAD, consists of 88 pieces of clothing and accessories, in addition to 6,387 drawings, some of which are on show for the first time. ADVERTISEMENT X O STAYING RELEVANT A RETAIL PLAYBOOK TO SUCCEED IN CHALLENGING TIMES DOWNLOAD NOW Elsa Schiaparelli - Collection drawing. winter 1938-1939, Musee des Arts Decoratifs. COURTESY OF MUSEE DES\f