:Elsa Schiaparelli

Elsa Luisa Maria Schiaparelli was born at the Palazzo Corsini, Rome.{{cite web|url=http://www.philamuseum.org/micro_sites/exhibitions/schiaparelli/kids/schiap-pack.pdf|title=Shocking! The Art and Fashion of Elsa Schiaparelli - teacher's pack|publisher=Philadelphia Museum of Art|last=Philadelphia Museum of Art Division of Education|accessdate=2008-04-25|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20080529134356/http://www.philamuseum.org/micro_sites/exhibitions/schiaparelli/kids/schiap-pack.pdf|archivedate=2008-05-29}} Her mother, Giuseppa Maria de Dominicis,Elsa Schiaparelli’ s [http://dl.antenati.san.beniculturali.it/v/Archivio+di+Stato+di+Roma/Stato+civile+italiano/Roma/Nati/1890/n+1192-1789+Vol+3+Parte+1+Serie+F/007659461_00092.jpg.html?g2_imageViewsIndex=0 birth record](top left corner) reports her mother’s name as Giuseppa Maria de Dominicis instead. was a Neapolitan aristocrat.{{cite journal | url=http://www.lrb.co.uk/v26/n04/rosemary-hill/hard-edged-chic | title=Hard-Edged Chic | first=Rosemary | last=Hill | journal=The London Review of Books | publisher=London Review of Books | date=19 February 2004 | volume=26 | issue=4 | pages=15–16 | issn=0260-9592 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120411080719/http://www.lrb.co.uk/v26/n04/rosemary-hill/hard-edged-chic | archive-date=11 April 2012 | url-status=live }} Her father, Celestino Schiaparelli, a Piedmontese, was an accomplished scholar with multiple areas of interest.{{Cite web|title=SCHIAPARELLI, Celestino in "Enciclopedia Italiana"|url=https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/celestino-schiaparelli_(Enciclopedia-Italiana)|access-date=20 December 2020|website=www.treccani.it|language=it-IT}} His studies focused on the Islamic world and the era of the Middle Ages and he was, in addition, an authority on Sanskrit and a curator of medieval manuscripts. He also served as Dean of the Sapienza University of Rome, where Schiaparelli would herself later go on to study philosophy.Secrest, p. 4, 5,{{cite magazine|date=13 August 1934|title=Haute Couture|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,747679-4,00.html|url-status=dead|magazine=Time|location=New York|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070716204503/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,747679-4,00.html|archive-date=16 July 2007}} {{subscription required}} His brother, astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli, had discovered the so-called canali, or Martian canals, and the young Schiaparelli often studied the heavens with her uncle. A cousin of the brothers, Ernesto Schiaparelli, was a noted Egyptologist who discovered the tomb of Nefertari and was Director of the Museo Egizio in Turin.{{cite book |last1=Gnoli |first1=Sofia |title=Un secolo di moda italiana, 1900–2000 |publisher=Meltemi Editore srl |isbn=9788883534287 |page=67 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5Ck_IHlPHZQC&pg=PA67|language=it|year=2005 }}{{Cite web|date=2021-06-04|title=Stilisti che hanno fatto la storia: Elsa Schiaparelli|url=https://dressmeup.biz/stilisti-che-hanno-fatto-la-storia-elsa-schiapparelli/|access-date=2022-02-10|website=Dress Me Up|language=it-IT}}

The cultural background and erudition of her family members served to ignite the imaginative faculties of Schiaparelli's impressionable childhood years. She became enraptured with the lore of ancient cultures and religious rites. These sources inspired her to pen a volume of poems titled Arethusa based on the ancient Greek myth of the hunt. The content of her writing so alarmed the conservative sensibilities of her parents that they sought to tame her fantasy life by sending her to a convent boarding school in Switzerland. Once within the school's confines, Schiaparelli rebelled against its strict authority by going on a hunger strike, leaving her parents with no alternative but to bring her home again.Secrest, 14, 15

Schiaparelli was dissatisfied by a lifestyle that, whilst refined and comfortable, she considered cloistered and unfulfilling. Her craving for adventure and exploration of the wider world led to her taking measures to remedy this, and when a friend offered her a post (find/offer someone to fill a job) caring for orphaned children in an English country house, she saw an opportunity to leave. The placement, however, proved unsuitable to Schiaparelli, who subsequently planned a return to the stop-over city of Paris rather than admit defeat by returning to Rome and her family.Secrest, p. 19, 20

Schiaparelli fled to London to avoid the certainty of marriage to a persistent suitor, a wealthy Russian whom her parents favored and for whom she herself felt no attraction. In London, Schiaparelli —who had held a fascination for psychic phenomena since childhood— attended a lecture on theosophy. The lecturer that night was Willem de Wendt, a man of various aliases who was also known as Willie Wendt and Wilhem de Kerlor. He was reported to have legally changed his name in England to Wilhelm Frederick Wendt de Kerlor, a combination of his father's last name and mother's maiden name.Secrest, p. 17 de Wendt's profession was that of a tireless, inventive self-promoter, in reality a con man who claimed to have psychic powers, and numerous academic credentials. He alternatively and simultaneously passed himself off as detective and criminal psychologist, doctor, and lecturer. In a stint on the vaudeville stage, de Kerlor billed himself as "The World Famous Dr. W. de Kerlor."Secrest, p. 34, 37, 39, 42, 44 Schiaparelli was immediately attracted to this charismatic charlatan and they became engaged the day after their first meeting. They married shortly thereafter in London on 21 July 1914; Schiaparelli was twenty-three, her new husband, thirty.Secrest, p. 20. De Kerlor attempted to earn a living aggrandizing his reputation as a psychic practitioner as the couple subsisted primarily on the wedding dowry and an allowance provided by Schiaparelli's wealthy parents.Secrest, p. 28-30 Schiaparelli played the role of her husband's helpmate and helped facilitate the promotion of his fraudulent schemes. In 1915, the couple were forced to leave England after de Kerlor was deported following his conviction for practicing fortune-telling, then illegal.Secrest, p. 26-27, 44 They subsequently lived a peripatetic existence in Paris, Cannes, Nice, and Monte Carlo, before leaving for America in the spring of 1916.

The de Kerlors disembarked in New York, initially staying at the Brevoort, a prominent hotel in Greenwich Village, after which they relocated to an apartment above the Café des Artistes near Central Park West. De Kerlor rented offices to house his newly inaugurated "Bureau of Psychology" where he hoped to achieve fame and fortune through his paranormal and consulting work. His wife acted as his assistant, providing clerical support for self-promotions crafted to provide the newspapers with sensational copy, win celebrity, and garner acclaim. During this period de Kerlor came under the surveillance of the Federal government's Bureau of Investigation, (BOI) a precursor of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, (FBI), not only for his dubious professional practices but also on suspicion of harboring anti-British and pro-German allegiance during wartime. By 1917, de Kerlor's acquaintance with journalists John Reed and Louise Bryant had positioned him on the government radar as a possible Bolshevik sympathizer and Communist revolutionary. Attempting to avoid this unremitting scrutiny, the de Kerlors decamped to Boston in 1918, where they continued their activities as they had done in New York.Secrest, p. 17, 30, 36 De Kerlor, an incurable publicity hound, made imprudent admissions to a BOI investigator in prideful support of the Russian Revolution and went so far as to admit to an association with a notorious anarchist, whilst his wife incriminated herself by revealing that she was tutoring Italians in Boston's North End on the tenets of Bolshevism, and that she herself had the knowledge to assemble explosive devices. Both were ultimately spared prosecution or deportation, the authorities concluding that such admissions so freely given were more indicative of foolish grandstanding than evidence of individuals who were a threat to society.Secrest, p. 50

Almost immediately after their child, Maria Luisa Yvonne Radha (nicknamed 'Gogo'), was born on 15 June 1920, de Kerlor moved out, leaving Schiaparelli alone with their newborn daughter.Secrest, p. 53, In later years, whenever Gogo asked her mother about her absent father, she was told that he was dead.Secrest, p. 84. Schiaparelli apparently made no efforts to bring her husband back or to seek support payments for herself and Gogo. In 1921, the 18-month-old Gogo was diagnosed with polio, which proved a stressful and protracted challenge for both mother and child. Years later, Gogo recalled spending her early years in plaster casts and on crutches, with a largely absent mother whom she barely saw. Fearing that de Kerlor would attempt to gain legal custody of Gogo, Schiaparelli had the child's surname legally changed to Schiaparelli prior to their return to France in 1922.Secrest, p 66, 57

Schiaparelli relied greatly on the emotional support offered her by her close friend Gabrielle 'Gaby' Buffet-Picabia, the wife of Dada/Surrealist artist Francis Picabia, whom she had first met on board ship during the transatlantic crossing to America in 1916.Secrest, p. 52 Following de Kerlor's desertion, Schiaparelli returned to New York, attracted to its spirit of fresh beginnings and cultural vibrancy. Her interest in spiritualism translated into a natural affinity for the art of the Dada and Surrealist movements, and her friendship with Gaby Picabia facilitated entry into this creative circle which comprised noteworthy members such as Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp, Alfred Stieglitz, and Edward Steichen.Secrest, p. 63, 67 Although technically still married, Schiaparelli took a lover, the opera singer Mario Laurenti, but this relationship was cut short by Laurenti's death in 1922 after a sudden illness.Secrest, p. 28-30, 53, 61a Whilst they were together, de Kerlor had purportedly conducted affairs with the dancer Isadora Duncan and the actress Alla Nazimova.

Schiaparelli and de Kerlor were eventually divorced in March 1924.Secrest, p. 33, 55, 74 In 1928, de Kerlor was murdered in Mexico under circumstances never fully revealed.

File:Expo-Elsa Schiaparelli (17).jpg

File:Expo-Elsa Schiaparelli (23).jpg

File:Expo-Elsa Schiaparelli (22).jpg

Following the lead of Gabrielle Picabia and others, and after the death of her lover Laurenti, Schiaparelli left New York for France in 1922. Upon her arrival in Paris, she took an expensive apartment in a fashionable quarter of the city taking on the requisite servants, cook and maid. The self-made associations she formed over the years along with the eminent social position held by her Italian family combined to ensure that she would be embraced by desirable social circles on her return to France.Secrest, p. 68

Although never threatened with destitution as she continued to receive financial support from her mother, Schiaparelli nevertheless felt the need to earn an independent income. She assisted Man Ray with his Dada magazine Société Anonyme, which proved short lived. Gaby Picabia then suggested a business enterprise which would be beneficial to herself and Schiaparelli. Connected to the French couturier Paul Poiret through her association with his sister Nicole Groult, Picabia proposed that they sell French couture in America. This proposed project, however, never became a viable enterprise and was abandoned.Secrest, p. 63, 65

Schiaparelli's design career was early on influenced by couturier Paul Poiret, who was renowned for jettisoning corseted, over-long dresses and promoting styles that enabled freedom of movement for the modern, elegant and sophisticated woman. In later life, Schiaparelli referred to Poiret as "a generous mentor, dear friend."Secrest, p.138

Schiaparelli had no training in the technical skills of pattern making and clothing construction. Her method of approach relied on both impulse of the moment and the serendipitous inspiration as the work progressed. She draped fabric directly on the body, sometimes using herself as the model. This technique followed the lead of Poiret who too had created garments by manipulating and draping. The results appeared uncontrived and wearable.

file:Bow-knot sweater Schiaparelli.jpg

Whilst in Paris, Schiaparelli—"Schiap" to her friends—began making her own clothes. With encouragement from Poiret, she started her own business, but it closed in 1926 despite favourable reviews. She launched a new collection of knitwear in early 1927 using a special double layered stitch created by Armenian refugees and featuring sweaters with surrealist {{lang|fr|trompe-l'œil}} images. Although her first designs appeared in Vogue, the business really took off with a pattern that gave the impression of a scarf wrapped around the wearer's neck. The "pour le Sport" collection expanded the following year to include bathing suits, ski-wear, and linen dresses. Schiaparelli added evening wear to her collections in 1931, using the luxury silks of Robert Perrier, and the business went from strength to strength, in 1935, culminating in a move from Rue de la Paix to acquiring the renowned salon of Louise Chéruit at 21 Place Vendôme, which was rechristened the Schiap Shop.Maison Robert Perrier (Fédération Nationale du Tissu). 2000. Exhibit. Mairie du 4e arrondissement de Paris, Paris. Schiaparelli's 98-room salon and work studios occupied the distinguished Hôtel de Fontpertuis, built in the 17th century by Pierre Bullet.{{cite web|url=http://www.philamuseum.org/micro_sites/exhibitions/schiaparelli/kids/schiap-pack.pdf|title=Shocking! The Art and Fashion of Elsa Schiaparelli - teacher's pack|publisher=Philadelphia Museum of Art|last=Philadelphia Museum of Art Division of Education|accessdate=2008-04-25|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20080529134356/http://www.philamuseum.org/micro_sites/exhibitions/schiaparelli/kids/schiap-pack.pdf|archivedate=2008-05-29}}

{{Quote box|

: 'Or give me a new Muse with stockings and suspenders

:And a smile like a cat

:With false eyelashes and finger-nails of carmine

:And dressed by Schiaparelli, with a pill-box hat.'

| source = —Louis MacNeice, Autumn Journal, stanza XV, 1939.

| width = 25%

| align = right

| style = padding:10px;

}}

Colin McDowell noted that by 1939 Schiaparelli was well known enough in intellectual circles to be mentioned as the epitome of modernity by the Irish poet Louis MacNeice. Although McDowell cites MacNeice's reference as from Bagpipe Music,{{cite book|last1=McDowell|first1=Colin|title=McDowell's directory of twentieth century fashion|date=1988|publisher=Prentice Hall Press|location=New York|isbn=9780135669280|edition=Rev.}}{{cite web|last1=McDowell|first1=Colin|title=The Fashion Website: Schiaparelli|url=http://www.colinmcdowell.com/directory/thedirectory/elsa/schaparelli.html|website=Colin McDowell: The Fashion Website|access-date=16 July 2014}} it is actually from stanza XV of Autumn Journal.{{cite book|last1=MacNeice|first1=Louis|editor1-last=Skelton|editor1-first=Robin|title=Poetry of the Thirties|date=2000|publisher=Penguin UK|isbn=0141921455|page=266|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=m2m_tGGUi5IC&pg=PT266|chapter=Autumn Journal XV}}

A darker tone was set when France declared war on Germany in 1939. Schiaparelli's Spring 1940 collection featured "trench" brown and camouflage print taffetas. Soon after the fall of Paris on 14 June 1940, Schiaparelli sailed to New York for a lecture tour; apart from a few months in Paris in early 1941, she remained in New York City until the end of the war. On her return she found that fashions had changed, with Christian Dior's "New Look" marking a rejection of pre-war fashion. The house of Schiaparelli struggled in the austerity of the post-war period. Schiaparelli discontinued her couture business in 1951, and finally closed down the heavily indebted design house in December 1954,{{Cite web|url=http://blog.europeana.eu/2019/03/elsa-schiaparelli-declaring-feminine-willpower-through-fashion/|title=Elsa Schiaparelli: Declaring Feminine Willpower through Fashion|last=European Fashion Heritage Association|website=Europeana [CC By-SA]|date=4 March 2019 |language=en-GB|access-date=4 March 2019}} the same year that her great rival Coco Chanel returned to the business.

In 1954, Schiaparelli published her autobiography Shocking Life and then lived out a comfortable retirement between her Paris apartment and her house in Tunisia. She died on 13 November 1973, at the age of 83.

Schiaparelli was one of the first designers to develop the wrap dress, taking inspiration from aprons to produce a design that would accommodate and flatter all female body types. Her design, which first appeared in 1930, offered a two-sided model with armholes on each side, brought together in the front of the garment and wrapped and tied at the waistline. Buttons may also have been incorporated into this early version. Initially conceived as beachwear and produced in four colours of tussore silk, the dress was popular with buyers and copied by garment manufacturers as a design for everyday street wear. Some forty years afterwards, this uncomplicated and easy-to-wear design was revisited in the 1970s by the American designer Diane von Fürstenberg.Secrest, p. 93{{cite web | last=Woods | first=Vicki | publication-date=24 October 2003 | year=2003 | title=Chic value | location=London | url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2003/10/24/baschiap20.xml | work=The Daily Telegraph | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080518043537/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=%2Farts%2F2003%2F10%2F24%2Fbaschiap20.xml | archive-date=18 May 2008 | url-status=dead }}

In 1931, Schiaparelli's divided skirt—a forerunner of shorts—shocked the tennis world when worn by Lili de Alvarez at Wimbledon in 1931.

Other innovations included a swimsuit design which incorporated an interior bra with an alluring low-cut back by using hidden straps that crossed in the back and closed around the waist. This design was patented in 1930 and retailed by Best & Company. Other designs were made with detachable elements and reversible sections. Also in 1930, she is credited with having produced the first evening dress with a matching jacket. During Prohibition in the United States, Schiaparelli's popularly named "speakeasy dress" provided a hidden pocket for a flask for alcoholic beverage.Secrest, p. 118-119, 174

File:Elsa Schiaparelli, tailleur 1938-39 (cropped).jpg]]

Schiaparelli is one of the designers credited with offering the first clothes with visible zippers in 1930. Rather than being concealed, zippers became a key element of Schiaparelli's designs, visibly fastening necklines and running down sleeves and skirts.Secrest, p. 153, 154 She used chunky plastic zippers made from cellulose nitrate, the first semi-synthetic plastic fabric, and cellulose acetate.{{cite journal |last1=Haldane |first1=Elizabeth-Anne |title=Surreal semi-synthetics |journal=V&A Conservation Journal |date=Spring 2007 |issue=55 |url=http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/journals/conservation-journal/issue-55/surreal-semi-synthetics/|access-date=5 March 2015}} Along with Charles James, Schiaparelli had arrangements with the manufacturers to promote their zip fasteners, using specific brands depending on where the garment would be sold (such as Éclair for Paris models, Lightning Fastener Co. for London models, and Hookless Fastener Co. zips for American export models).

Schiaparelli was also renowned for her unusual buttons, which could resemble candlesticks, playing card emblems, ships, crowns, mirrors, and crickets;{{cite web | title=Buttons. Jean Clément or Roger Jean-Pierre for Elsa Schiaparelli | url=http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/80094073 | publisher=Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130921115835/http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/80094073 | archive-date=21 September 2013 | url-status=live }} or silver tambourines and silk-covered carrots and cauliflowers. Many of these fastenings were designed by Jean Clemént and Roger Jean-Pierre who also created jewellery for her. In 1936, Schiaparelli was one of the first people to recognise the potential of Jean Schlumberger who she originally employed as a designer of buttons.Scarisbrick, p. 211

Schiaparelli's output also included distinctive costume jewellery in a wide range of novelty designs. One of her most directly Surrealist designs was a 1938 Rhodoid (a newly developed clear plastic) necklace studded with coloured metallic insects by Clément giving the illusion that the bugs were crawling directly on the wearer's skin.{{cite web | title=Necklace. Elsa Schiaparelli (Italian, 1890–1973) | url=http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/80093782 | publisher=Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120913151200/http://www.metmuseum.org/collections/search-the-collections/80093782 | archive-date=13 September 2012 | url-status=live }} During the 1930s her jewellery designs were produced by Schlumberger, Clemént and Jean-Pierre, who also made up designs for buttons and fasteners. Schlumberger's jewellery with its inventive combinations of precious and semi-precious stones proved successful, and at the end of the 1930s, he left to launch his jewellery business in New York.White, p. 149{{cite book | last=Ball | first=Joanne Dubbs | title=Costume jewelers : the golden age of design | year=1990 | publisher=Schiffer Pub. | location=West Chester, Pa. | isbn=9780887402555 | pages=25 }} Schiaparelli also offered brooches by Alberto Giacometti, fur-lined metal cuffs by Méret Oppenheim, and pieces by Max Boinet, Lina Baretti, and the writer Elsa Triolet.{{cite book | editor-last=Steele | editor-first=Valerie | title=The Berg companion to fashion | year=2010 | publisher=Berg | location=Oxford [etc.] | isbn=9781847885630 | pages=619–621 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0_3qzO6NTqcC&pg=PA620 | first=Caroline | last=Evans }}{{cite book | last=Muller | first=Florence | title=Costume jewelry for haute couture | year=2007 | publisher=Vendome Press | location=New York | isbn=978-0865651821 }} Compared to her unusual couture 1930s pieces, 1940s and 1950s Schiaparelli jewellery tended to be more abstract or floral-themed.{{cite book | last=Miller | first=Judith | title=Costume jewellery | year=2007 | publisher=Dorling Kindersley | location=London | isbn=978-1405334044 | pages=63 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=s-oICzmGwrIC&pg=PA63 }}

Schiaparelli’s jewelry in the 1930s showcased her penchant for bold material choices, such as glass stones, cabochons, dyed pearls, and iridescent seashells, often assembled in shapes and colors that had not been seen before. Her surrealist influence was evident in pieces like lip-shaped brooches with pearls for teeth and lobster pins.{{Cite web |title=Discover Italian Designer Elsa Schiaparelli, the Greatest Rival of Coco Chanel |url=https://dsfantiquejewelry.com/blogs/journal/discover-italian-designer-elsa-schiaparelli-the-greatest-rival-of-coco-chanel?_pos=4&_sid=2183e2d09&_ss=r |access-date=2024-10-29 |website=DSF Antique Jewelry |language=en}} Elsa Schiaperelli was a big fan of Salvador Dali and the Surrealist movement, which noticeably influenced her own designs in the 1930s and 1940s.{{Cite web |last=Cathleen |first=McCarthy |date=October 18, 2010 |title=Salvador Dali: bejeweled surrealism |url=https://thejewelryloupe.com/salvador-dali-bejeweled-surrealism/ |website=The Jewelry Loupe}} Schiaparelli presented some of her jewelry at the influential Exposition of Modern Industrial and Decorative Arts in 1925.{{Cite web |last=Oatman-Stanford |first=Hunter |title=A Shock of Schiaparelli: The Surreal Provocateur Who Forever Altered Fashion |url=https://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/a-shock-of-schiaparelli/ |access-date=2024-10-29 |website=Collectors Weekly |language=en}}

Schiaparelli was noted for her use of innovative textiles which were woven to resemble textures such as tree bark or crepe paper; a plush made to mimic ermine; and novelty prints including a fabric patterned with newspaper clippings. She made garments from crumpled rayon 50 years before Issey Miyake produced similarly pleated and crinkled pieces. Schiaparelli enjoyed playing with juxtapositions of colours, shapes, and textures, and embraced the new technologies and materials of the time. With Charles Colcombet she experimented with acrylic, cellophane, a rayon jersey called "Jersela,” and a rayon with metal threads called "Fildifer"—the first time synthetic materials had been used in couture. Some of these innovations were not pursued further, like her 1934 "glass" cape made from Rhodophane, a transparent plastic related to cellophane.Handley, p. 192 Making clothes from these new and untested fabrics posed unexpected hazards—Diana Vreeland had a Schiaparelli dress melt at the dry cleaners' after its synthetic fabric reverted to chemical sludge upon contact with the cleaning fluids.Handley, p.27

File:1938 coat designed by Elsa Schiaparelli and Jean Cocteau.jpg, London, 1937. V&A, T.59-2005.]]

Schiaparelli's fanciful imaginative powers coupled with involvement in the Dada/Surrealist art movements directed her into new creative territory. Her instinctive sensibilities soon came to distinguish her creations from her chief rival Coco Chanel, who referred to her as 'that Italian artist who makes clothes'.{{cite book | last=Steele | first=Valerie | author-link=Valerie Steele | contribution=Chanel in Context | editor1-last=Ash | editor1-first=Juliet | editor2-last=Wilson | editor2-first=Elizabeth | title=Chic Thrills: A Fashion Reader | pages=124 | publisher=Pandora Press (Harper Collins) | place=London | year=1992 | isbn=0-04-440824-2 }} Schiaparelli collaborated with a number of contemporary artists, most famously with Salvador Dalí, to develop a number of her most notable designs. Schiaparelli also had a good relationship with other artists including Leonor Fini, Méret Oppenheim, and Alberto Giacometti.Steele, p.146

In 1937 Schiaparelli collaborated with the artist Jean Cocteau to produce two of her most notable art-themed designs for that year's Autumn collection.{{cite web | url=https://collections.vam.ac.uk/objectid/O117953 | title=Coat designed by Elsa Schiaparelli and Jean Cocteau | work=Collections database | publisher=Victoria and Albert Museum | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090318011142/http://collections.vam.ac.uk/objectid/O117953 | archive-date=18 March 2009 | url-status=live }} An evening jacket was embroidered with a female figure with one hand caressing the waist of the wearer, and long blonde hair cascading down one sleeve.{{cite web | url=http://www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/65317.html?mulR=23480 | title=Dinner jacket designed by Elsa Schiaparelli and Jean Cocteau | work=Collections database | publisher=Philadelphia Museum of Art | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120222000458/http://www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/65317.html?mulR=23480 | archive-date=22 February 2012 | url-status=live }} A long evening coat featured two profiles facing each other, creating the optical illusion of a vase of roses. The embroidering of both garments was executed by the couture embroiderers Lesage.

The designs Schiaparelli produced in collaboration with Dalí are among her best known. In addition to well-documented collaborations such as the shoe hat and the Lobster, Tears, and Skeleton dresses, Dalí's influence has been identified in designs such as the lamb-cutlet hat and a 1936-day suit with pockets simulating a chest of drawers.Martin, pp.118–120 While Schiaparelli did not formally name her designs, the four main garments from her partnership with Dalí are popularly known as follows:

;Lobster dress

The 1937 Lobster dress was a simple white silk evening dress with a crimson waistband featuring a large lobster painted (by Dalí) onto the skirt. From 1934, Dalí had started incorporating lobsters into his work, including New York Dream-Man Finds Lobster in Place of Phone shown in the magazine American Weekly in 1935, and the mixed-media Lobster Telephone (1936). His design for Schiaparelli was interpreted into a fabric print by the leading silk designer Sache. It was famously worn by Wallis Simpson in a series of photographs by Cecil Beaton taken at the Château de Candé shortly before her marriage to Edward VIII.{{cite web | url=http://www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/65327.html?mulR=21188 | title=The Lobster Dress | work=Collections database | publisher=Philadelphia Museum of Art | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120222000513/http://www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/65327.html?mulR=21188 | archive-date=22 February 2012 | url-status=live }}

;Tears Dress

The Tears Dress, a slender pale-blue evening gown printed with a Dalí design of trompe-l'œil rips and tears, worn with a thigh-length veil with "real" tears carefully cut out and lined in pink and magenta, was part of the February 1938 Circus Collection. The print was intended to give the illusion of torn animal flesh, the tears printed to represent fur on the reverse of the fabric and suggest that the dress was made of animal pelts turned inside out. Figures in ripped, skin-tight clothing suggesting flayed flesh appeared in three of Dalí's 1936 paintings, one of which, Necrophiliac Springtime, was owned by Schiaparelli; the other two are The Dream Places a Hand on a Man's Shoulder and Three Young Surrealist Women Holding in Their Arms the Skins of an Orchestra.{{cite web | url=https://collections.vam.ac.uk/objectid/O84418 | title=The Tears Dress | work=Collections database | publisher=Victoria and Albert Museum | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090318011156/http://collections.vam.ac.uk/objectid/O84418 | archive-date=18 March 2009 | url-status=live }}{{cite web | url=http://www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/65326.html?mulR=4749 | title=The Tears Dress | work=Collections database | publisher=Philadelphia Museum of Art | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110613162426/http://www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/65326.html?mulR=4749 | archive-date=13 June 2011 | url-status=live }} Richard Martin saw the Tears Dress as a memento mori produced in response to the Spanish Civil War and the spread of Fascism, declaring that to "tear the dress is to deny its customary decorum and utility, and to question the matter of concealment and revelation in the garment."Martin, p.136-137 He noted that even if the tears in the dress were mere ornament like slashing, the real tears on the veil negated this, offering visual disagreements between reality and pretence.Martin, p.114

;Skeleton Dress

Dalí also helped Schiaparelli design the Skeleton Dress for the Circus Collection. It was a stark black crepe dress which used trapunto quilting to create padded ribs, spine, and leg bones.{{cite web | url=https://collections.vam.ac.uk/objectid/O65687 | title=The Skeleton Dress | work=Collections database | publisher=Victoria and Albert Museum | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090318011146/http://collections.vam.ac.uk/objectid/O65687 | archive-date=18 March 2009 | url-status=live }}

;Shoe Hat

In 1933, Dalí was photographed by his wife Gala Dalí with one of her slippers balanced on his head.Martin, pp.110–111. In 1937 he sketched designs for a shoe hat for Schiaparelli, which she featured in her Fall-Winter 1937–38 collection. The hat, shaped like a woman's high-heeled shoe, had the heel standing straight up and the toe tilted over the wearer's forehead.{{cite web | title=Elsa Schiaparelli: Hat (1974.139) | work=Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | location=New York |publisher=The Metropolitan Museum of Art (2000–.) | url=http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/1974.139 | date=April 2011 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111208043116/http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/1974.139 | archive-date=8 December 2011 | url-status=live }} This hat was worn by Gala Dalí,{{cite web | url=https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O183849/hat-shoe-hat/ | title=Shoe Hat worn by Gala Dalí | work=Collections database | publisher=Victoria and Albert Museum | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120309102438/http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O183849/hat-shoe-hat/ | archive-date=9 March 2012 | url-status=live }} Schiaparelli herself, and by the Franco-American editor of the French Harper's Bazaar, heiress Daisy Fellowes, who was one of Schiaparelli's best clients.{{Cite book|title=The Secret Lives of Colour|last=St. Clair|first=Kassia|publisher=John Murray|year=2016|isbn=9781473630819|location=London|pages=126–127|oclc=936144129}}

File:Zsa Zsa Gabor as Jane Avril, Moulin Rouge 1952.png in Moulin Rouge, 1952]]

Schiaparelli designed the wardrobes for several films, starting with the French version of 1933's Topaze, and ending with Zsa Zsa Gabor's outfits for the 1952 biopic of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Moulin Rouge in which Gabor played Jane Avril. Moulin Rouge won Marcel Vertès an Academy Award for Costume Design, although Schiaparelli's role in costuming the leading lady went unacknowledged beyond a prominent on-screen credit for Gabor's costumes. Authentically, Gabor's costumes were directly based upon Toulouse-Lautrec's portraits of Avril.{{cite web | url=https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O15576/evening-dress-elsa-schiaparelli/?print=1 | title=1953 Schiaparelli evening dress | work=Collections database | publisher=Victoria and Albert Museum | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130921120158/http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O15576/evening-dress-elsa-schiaparelli/ | archive-date=21 September 2013 | url-status=live }}

She famously dressed Mae West for Every Day's a Holiday (1937) using a mannequin based on West's measurements, which inspired the torso bottle for Shocking perfume.

The House of Schiaparelli was first opened in the 1930s at 21 Place Vendôme. After World War II, Elsa Schiaparelli did not manage to find success with her collections. The couture house was shut down on 13 December 1954.{{cite web|last=Buck|first=Joan Juliet|date=31 October 2013|title=Schiaparelli: A Shocking Return|url=http://www.wmagazine.com/fashion/2013/10/marco-zanini-schiaparelli/photos|access-date=24 December 2013|website=wmagazine.com|publisher=Conde Nast}} In 1957, she created a company mainly for her perfume licences, which is the actual company today.{{Cite web|title=ELSA SCHIAPARELLI SAS (PARIS 1) Chiffre d'affaires, résultat, bilans sur SOCIETE.COM – 572161123|url=https://www.societe.com/societe/elsa-schiaparelli-sas-572161123.html|access-date=2022-01-24|website=www.societe.com}} In 2007, Italian businessman Diego Della Valle acquired the company, but it wasn't until Marco Zanini was appointed in September 2013 that details of the brand's revival became public. The house has been nominated for a return to the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture list of members, and presented its first show since nomination in January 2014.{{cite web|date=30 September 2013|title=Marco Zanini Creative Director|url=http://www.schiaparelli.com/en/news.html|access-date=23 December 2013|website=Schiaparelli|publisher=Schiaparelli.com}} Schiaparelli, using a hyper-exclusive business strategy, is to sell its first collection exclusively at a by-appointment boutique in Paris.{{cite web|author=Socha, Miles|date=19 February 2014|title=Schiaparelli to Sell by Appointment Only|url=http://www.wwd.com/fashion-news/designer-luxury/schiaparelli-to-sell-by-appointment-only-7480764?src=nl/mornReport/20140219|access-date=19 February 2014|publisher=WWD}} Following the appointment of Daniel Roseberry as Creative Director, the brand has experienced greater notoriety and success especially through dressing celebrities for the red carpet.{{Cite web |last=Michault |first=Jessica |date=November 30, 2022 |title=Daniel Roseberry—The designer who scripted Schiaparelli's success story |url=https://www.harpersbazaar.in/fashion/story/daniel-roseberrythe-designer-who-scripted-schiaparellis-success-story-564713-2022-11-30 |access-date=2023-11-09 |website=Harper Bazar |language=en}} The company is now moving towards luxury Ready-to-wear.{{Cite web|last=FR|first=FashionNetwork com|title=Schiaparelli dévoile le deuxième volet de son prêt-à-porter chez Bergdorf Goodman|url=https://fr.fashionnetwork.com/news/Schiaparelli-devoile-le-deuxieme-volet-de-son-pret-a-porter-chez-bergdorf-goodman,1045550.html|access-date=2022-01-24|website=FashionNetwork.com|language=fr}}

The failure of her business meant that Schiaparelli's name is not as well remembered as that of her great rival Chanel.{{Citation needed|date=June 2019}} But in 1934, Time placed Chanel in the second division of fashion, whereas Schiaparelli was one of "a handful of houses now at or near the peak of their power as arbiters of the ultra-modern haute couture....Madder and more original than most of her contemporaries, Mme Schiaparelli is the one to whom the word 'genius' is applied most often". At the same time Time recognised that Chanel had assembled a fortune of some US$15m despite being "not at present the most dominant influence in fashion", whereas Schiaparelli relied on inspiration rather than craftsmanship and "it was not long before every little dress factory in Manhattan had copied them and from New York's 3rd Avenue to San Francisco's Howard Street millions of shop girls who had never heard of Schiaparelli were proudly wearing her models".

In 2022, Schiaparelli was included in Ferren Gipson's book exploring feminine arts and feminist art.{{Cite book |last=Gipson |first=Ferren |title=Women's work: from feminine arts to feminist art |date=2022 |publisher=Frances Lincoln |isbn=978-0-7112-6465-6 |location=London}}

File:Patent drawing for a bottle for 'Sleeping' perfume by Elsa Schiaparelli, 1939. USD116055 crop 01.png (1939).{{cite web|title="Sleeping" perfume bottle by Marcel Vertès for Elsa Schiaparelli|url=https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O365623/sleeping-perfume-bottle-vertes-marcel/|website=V&A Search the Collections|publisher=V&A|access-date=20 April 2016}}]]

Schiaparelli's perfumes were noted for their unusual packaging and bottles. Her best-known perfume was "Shocking!" (1936), contained in a bottle sculpted by Leonor Fini in the shape of a woman's torso inspired by Mae West's tailor's dummy and Dalí paintings of flower-sellers.{{cite web | last=Webb | first=Peter | title=Une Grande Curiosité | url=http://www.weinstein.com/fini/fini_text.html | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101216022119/http://www.weinstein.com/fini/fini_text.html | archive-date=16 December 2010 | url-status=live }}{{cite web | title=Perfume Intelligence – The Encyclopaedia of Perfume: Volume S : Schiaparelli, Elsa | url=http://www.perfumeintelligence.co.uk/library/perfume/s/houses/SchiapEl.htm | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130921175311/http://www.perfumeintelligence.co.uk/library/perfume/s/houses/SchiapEl.htm | archive-date=21 September 2013 | url-status=live }} The packaging, also designed by Fini, was in shocking pink, one of Schiaparelli's signature colours which was said to have been inspired by Daisy Fellowes' Tête de Belier (Ram's Head) pink diamond.{{cite web | last=Owens | first=Mitchell | publication-date=13 April 1997 | year=1997 | title=Jewelry That Gleams With Wicked Memories | url=https://www.nytimes.com/1997/04/13/arts/jewelry-that-gleams-with-wicked-memories.html?pagewanted=2&src=pm | work=The New York Times | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120704091912/http://www.nytimes.com/1997/04/13/arts/jewelry-that-gleams-with-wicked-memories.html?pagewanted=2&src=pm | archive-date=4 July 2012 | url-status=live }}

Other perfumes included:

• Salut (1934)
• Souci (1934)
• Schiap (1934)
• Sleeping (1938)
• Snuff (for men; 1939)
• Roi Soleil (1946)
• Zut! (1948)

Schiaparelli's two granddaughters, from her daughter's marriage to shipping executive Robert L. Berenson, were model Marisa Berenson and photographer Berry Berenson. Both sisters appeared regularly in Vogue in the early 1970s. Berry was married to the actor Anthony Perkins, with whom she had two children, the actor Oz Perkins and the musician Elvis Perkins. In 2014, Marisa collaborated with Hubert de Givenchy to publish the book Elsa Schiaparelli's Private Album which reproduced photographs from her grandmother's personal archives. {{cite book|last1=Berenson|first1=Marisa|title=Elsa Schiaparelli's Private Album|last2=Givenchy|first2=Hubert de|date=2014|publisher=Double-Barrelled Books|isbn=9780957150072|location=London}} Elsa is the niece of astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli.

• "Shocking!" The Art and Fashion of Elsa Schiaparelli, at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (September 2003 – January 2004) and the Musée de la Mode, Paris (March–August 2004).{{cite web | title="Shocking!" The Art and Fashion of Elsa Schiaparelli | url=http://www.philamuseum.org/exhibitions/2004/64.html | publisher=Philadelphia Museum of Art | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080101190827/http://www.philamuseum.org/exhibitions/2004/64.html | archive-date=1 January 2008 | url-status=live }}
• Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations; The Costume Institute of The Metropolitan Museum of Art (May–August 2012){{cite web | title=Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations | url=http://www.metmuseum.org/impossibleconversations/ | publisher=The Metropolitan Museum of Art | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120411000651/http://www.metmuseum.org/impossibleconversations | archive-date=11 April 2012 | url-status=live }}
• Couturier Christian Lacroix presented a tribute fashion collection to Schiaparelli at the Musee des Arts Decoratifs in 2013.{{cite web | url=http://www.msfabulous.com/2013/07/dream-fashion-mash-up-christian-lacroix.html | title=Dream Fashion Mash-Up: Christian Lacroix Does Schiaparelli | first=Mariana | last=Leung | work=Ms Fabulous | date=4 July 2013 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130820203505/http://www.msfabulous.com/2013/07/dream-fashion-mash-up-christian-lacroix.html | archive-date=20 August 2013 | url-status=live }}

{{reflist|3}}

{{refbegin}}

• {{cite web | url=http://www.philamuseum.org/micro_sites/exhibitions/schiaparelli/kids/schiap-pack.pdf | title=Shocking! The Art and Fashion of Elsa Schiaparelli – teacher's pack | publisher=Philadelphia Museum of Art | last=Division of Education at the Philadelphia Museum of Art | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080529134356/http://www.philamuseum.org/micro_sites/exhibitions/schiaparelli/kids/schiap-pack.pdf | archive-date=29 May 2008 | url-status=dead }}
• {{cite book | last=Handley | first=Susannah | publication-date=19 January 2000 | year=2000 | title=Nylon: The Story of a Fashion Revolution | publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press | page=192 | isbn=978-0-8018-6325-7}}
• {{cite book | last=Martin | first=Richard | author-link=Richard Martin (curator) | year=1996 | title=Fashion & Surrealism | edition=Reprint | publisher=Rizzoli International Publications | isbn=978-0-8478-1073-4 }}
• {{cite book | last=Scarisbrick | first=Diana | title=Historic rings : four thousand years of craftsmanship | year=2004 | publisher=Kodansha International | location=Tokyo | isbn=9784770025401 | pages=211 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SWMaY6JxN5sC&pg=PT199 | edition=1st }}
• {{cite book |last1=Secrest |first1=Meryle | author-link=Meryle Secrest | title=Elsa Schiaparelli : a biography. |date=2014 |publisher=Alfred A Knopf |isbn=978-0307701596 }}
• {{cite book | editor1-last=Steele | editor1-first=Valerie | title=Encyclopaedia of Clothing & Fashion | pages=[https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaofcl03stee/page/146 146] | publisher=Thomson Gale | year=2005 | isbn=0-684-31397-9 | url-access=registration | url=https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaofcl03stee }}
• {{cite book | last1=White | first1=Palmer | last2=St Laurent (Foreword) | first2=Yves | author2-link=Yves Saint-Laurent (designer)| publication-date=May 1996 | year=1995 | title=Elsa Schiaparelli: Empress of Paris Fashion | edition=Updated | publisher=Aurum Press | isbn=978-1-85410-358-1 }}

{{refend}}

{{refbegin}}

• {{cite book | last=Baudot | first=Francois | year=1997 | title=Elsa Schiaparelli (Universe of Fashion) | publisher=Universe Publishing (Rizzoli) | isbn=978-0-7893-0116-1 }}
• {{cite book | last=Blum | first=Dilys E | publication-date=3 September 2003 | year=2003 | title=Shocking!: The Art and Fashion of Elsa Schiaparelli | publisher=Yale University Press | isbn=978-0-300-10066-2 }} Published to coincide with the Philadelphia exhibition.
• {{cite book | last=Schiaparelli | first=Elsa | publication-date=1 March 2007 | year=2007 | title=Shocking Life | location=London | publisher=Victoria and Albert Museum | isbn=978-1-85177-515-6 }} Recent edition of Elsa's autobiography, originally published by JM Dent & Sons, At the Aldine Press, London, 1954, with a frontispiece by Picasso, x+p. 230.
• {{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Z_bloAEACAAJ|title=Frocking Life: Searching for Elsa Schiaparelli|isbn=9780847843862|date=17 March 2015|publisher=Rizzoli International|author1=BillyBoy*|author1-link=BillyBoy*|pages=1–472|first2=Jean|last2=Druesedow|format=Biography}}

{{refend}}

{{commons category}}

• {{Internet Archive author |sname=Elsa Schiaparelli}}
• {{cite web | url=http://www.philamuseum.org/exhibitions/2004/64.html | title="Shocking!" The Art and Fashion of Elsa Schiaparelli 28 September 2003 – 4 January 2004 }} Major exhibition of Schiaparelli's work at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
• {{cite web | url=http://www.philamuseum.org/micro_sites/exhibitions/schiaparelli/index.html | title=Microsite for the "Shocking!" exhibition }}
• {{cite web | url=http://www.fondationtanagra.com/index.cfm?article=27&cfid=573827&cftoken=89422376 | title=The Shocking Career of Elsa Schiaparelli | access-date=4 February 2012 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120302174517/http://www.fondationtanagra.com/index.cfm?article=27&cfid=733490&cftoken=6155559 | archive-date=2 March 2012 | url-status=dead }} Catalogue text accompanying the 1984 Hommage a Schiaparelli exhibition held in Paris by the Fondation Tanagra.
• {{cite web | publisher=Victoria and Albert Museum | url=http://www.vam.ac.uk/vastatic/microsites/1486_couture/explore.php | title=Interactive timeline of couture houses and couturier biographies | date=29 July 2015 }}
• {{fashiondesigner|id=elsa-schiaparelli}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Schiaparelli, Elsa}}

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