In a pristine white room—its only real adornment the large window that views out to the Place Vendôme—Schiaparelli’s Artistic Director Daniel Roseberry sits relaxed behind a minimalist white table. He looks to be still feeling the reverberations that his latest haute couture collection—which he presented the day before—sent through the fashion world. The show took place in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, surrounded by the new exhibition Shocking! The Surreal Worlds of Elsa Schiaparelli. It made quite an evocative backdrop to a show that featured music from the original Jurassic Park movie, along with ensembles that celebrated both the female form and the sculptural beauty of blooms.
The exhibition, curated by Olivier Gabet and Marie-Sophie de la Carrière, is not just a look back at the inventive fashion of the founding Italian fashion designer (think a dress with a lobster decorating the length of the skirt, a make-up compact in the form of a telephone’s rotary dial, or a hat in the shape of a shoe). It also showcases how collaborations with her artistic contemporaries, such as Salvador Dalí, Jean Cocteau, and Man Ray influenced her work, and by extension, the work of
