The Surrealist Fashion of Elsa Schiaparelli - FASHION HISTORY SESSIONS

Surreal, eccentric, fun and shocking. This is the fashion of Elsa Schiaparelli. I'm Estela Mendes. Welcome to Fashion History Sessions. The first decades of the 20th century in fashion were of experimentation, new social orders, technological developments and the emancipation of women. Paris was the most avant-garde of all cities. Between the wars, artists, dissidents, eccentrics and those who wanted to live life to the fullest would move to the city. It was a moment of artistic movements and development of ideas. It is in this context that Elsa Schiaparelli creates her fashion. Unlike most of the couturiers of this period, Elsa Schiaparelli comes from a privileged background. She was born in Rome in 1890 in a palace, Palazzo Corsini, which is today the Gallerie Nazionale d'Art Antica. Pardon my Italian. Elsa's mother, Maria Luisa, was a Neapolitan aristocrat. Her father was Celestinus Schiaparelli, a scholar specialized in Islamic culture of the He was the dean of the University of Rome. Elsa's uncle, Giovanni Schiaparelli, was an astronomer who discovered the Martian canals, and her cousin Ernesto Schiaparelli was an Egyptologist who discovered the tomb of Nefertari. This is the environment in which Elsa is going to grow. She will absorb all this culture, which will later be visible in her creations. Ancient culture and old religious rites impressed her. In 1911, she wrote a volume of poems titled Arethusa, based on the ancient Greek myth of Hunt. Elsa studied philosophy at the University of Rome. Her young self felt bored with the privileged, conservative, aristocratic lifestyle provided by her family. She wanted to experience the world. She sees the opportunity of living when a friend offers her a position to look after orphaned children in an English country home. Elsa leaves Rome to England, but soon will leave England as well, as English country was not her scene either. Instead of claiming the feat, she goes where everyone who wants to experience life goes, that is, Paris, but eventually she will return home. Elsa has always been very interested in psychology. In 1913, she went to London, where she attended a conference on the subject. One of the lecturers was Willem de Wendt, a man who claimed to have psychic powers and many academic credentials. He seems adventurous, charismatic and passionate. Elsa falls for him immediately and becomes engaged to him in the following day. They married in July 1914. Elsa was 23 years old. These are times of war and in 1916 they moved to America. In New York, Elsa and her husband lived mostly of her dowry and her husband's bureau of psychology, where Elsa acted as an assistant. Soon after the birth of their daughter Gogo in 1920, Willem leaves the family. At the age of 18 months, Gogo is diagnosed with polio. Elsa finds great emotional support in her friend Gabi Picabia, the wife of Dada surrealist artist Francis Picabia. In New York, Schiaparelli starts to socialize with the surrealists and Dadas. She was now part of the social circle of artists like Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp. Following the lead of her friend Gabi Picabia, Schiaparelli moves to Paris with her daughter in 1922. It is time for the new divorcee, Elsa Schiaparelli, to leave the Parisian dream. In the most stylish city in the world, one must live a stylish lifestyle. Elsa sets up an apartment in an affluent neighborhood in Paris, surrounded by wonderful furniture and servants. The friendships that she made during her time in New York, her aristocratic origins and her intellectual background made Elsa Schiaparelli a person to meet in the social circles of the French capital. Though Elsa had financial support from her family, she wanted her own financial independence. This was a time of women liberating themselves and Elsa felt the same way. She ventures into various projects but with no great success. One of the most famous couturiers of this time was Paul Poiré. Elsa befriends Poiré and starts wearing his creations. This friendship will last her entire lives. Poiré incentivizes Elsa to create her own clothes, which she will, becoming of great success in the numerous parties that she attended. Elsa had no training in dressmaking. She would drape the designs on the body using herself as the model. This is the beginning of Elsa Schiaparelli business. Elsa opens a fashion house but it will close it in 1926, though she had good reviews. In early 1927, Schiaparelli launches a knitwear line called Pour le Sport, with surrealist trompe-l'oeil motifs, which was a great success. It appeared in the pages of Vogue and the business took off. In the following year, the brand expanded into bathing suits, skiwear and linen dresses. She set up business at No. 4 rue de la Paix. In 1931, Schiaparelli added evening wear. Schiaparelli haute couture business proved to be very successful. Everyone who was someone in the 1930s was now wearing Schiaparelli. From Wallis Simpson to Mae West. In 1935, Schiaparelli's salon moves to Hotel de Fontpertuis in Place Vendôme, where it still is today. The fashion of Elsa Schiaparelli was creative, fun, elegant and modern. From the beginning, Elsa used modern synthetic materials like ryan, acrylic and cellophane. One might think that some of these materials can be quite combustible. And it's true. Story tells that one day, Diana Vreeland took her cellophane Schiaparelli dress to the dry cleaners. To her dismay, when she went to pick it up, she had a melted dress. A melted couture dress. Well, that's the price to pay for experimentation. Schiaparelli was learning and experimenting with these new materials. She made garments with ryan 50 years before Issey Miyake. She was one of the first designers to incorporate visible zippers in 1930. Actually, zippers became a key element to Schiaparelli's designs. She had arrangements with zipper producers by region, depending where the clothes would be sold. Buttons were also a very important part of the garment, bringing an element of fun to something that is such a functional element. In 1930, Schiaparelli was the first designer to introduce the wrap dress. She got her inspiration from aprons. It first appeared for beachwear and was designed in four colors and silk. But Schiaparelli would continue to deliver innovation and a bit of consternation. In 1931, Spanish tennis player Lili de Alvarez presented herself at Wimbledon wearing a split skirt designed by Elsa Schiaparelli. This caused a scandal. But in the end, if it wasn't for the new design, no one would be still talking about Lili de Alvarez at Wimbledon in 1931, because after all, she only reached fourth place. It was indeed a fashion moment for posterity. Schiaparelli's 1930s fashion pioneers the hard chic style. Though feminine, it would employ some masculinity in the broad shoulders of the jackets, and some severity in the straight long skirt. This style was a great success during this decade, but it will lose its appeal with the end of World War II, when women look for more feminine looks. But perhaps what Elsa Schiaparelli's fashion is most famous for is for its relationship with art. Elsa may not have seen herself as a couturier, but more like an artist that used fashion as a medium. Through her interest in psychology and friendship with surrealist artists, Schiaparelli started to employ surrealism into her fashion. She would eventually partner with some of the most important surrealists like Jean Coteau and Salvador Dali. In 1937, Schiaparelli starts her collaboration with surrealist artists. Jean Coteau would collaborate in the creation of a dress embroidered at the back with two faces, and a jacket in which the face of a woman is embroidered. Her long golden hair covers one sleeve, and a hand is depicted around the waist. Her collaboration with Salvador Dali will be very fruitful. In 1937, they create the lobster dress, made in printed silk. Dali had been using this theme in his creations since 1934. This dress became very famous when the notorious Wallis Simpson was photographed wearing it by Cecil Bitton for Vogue. In the following year, they continued to collaborate, creating the tears dress. This dress is based on Dali's painting, three young surrealist women holding in their arms the skins of an orchestra. The painting details a woman with a ribbed dress showing her skin underneath. This is what we see in the print of the dress. This painting was a response to the Spanish Civil War. The skeleton dress was another now famous collaboration between the two of them. Black dress creating the idea of a rib cage, created with a padded lining, a style reproduced by the brand in recent years. Schiaparelli created collections with themes. Her circus collection from 1938 was one of the most inventive, decorated with animal prints and circus-inspired designs with a wide range of colors. In the same year, she launched her Zodiac collection, inspired in astronomy, a subject that was present in her childhood, depicting stars and planets in a grand variety of embroideries provided by Maison Lesage. The following year, in 1939, the music collection follows the same line, depicting musical instruments and notes in prints and embroideries. In the autumn of 1937, Schiaparelli launches her signature color, a shade of magenta that she called Shocking Pink. In her own words, she felt like it was a life-giving color, a shocking color pure and undiluted. This intense color was a huge success. The September issue of Vogue featured an illustration by Eric. The term Shocking Pink and the color itself remain in the fashion world until today. Elsa Schiaparelli also develops jewelry. Throughout the 1930s, she creates costume jewelry with Schlumberger, Clément and Jean-Pierre. Compared to her fashion creations, her jewelry tended to be more abstract and floral. Like any couturier by now, she launched perfumes. Her first scent, launched in 1934, was called Salut. Taken by the color that she loved the most, her second fragrance was called Shocking. The bottle was designed by Leonore Finney in a shape of a woman's torso, based on Mae West. Sharing the same clientele, moving in the same social circles, living in the same city and foremost, being in the same business. Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiaparelli had everything to be friends but were enemies instead. There was a feud between them. Chanel would refer to Schiaparelli as that Italian woman who makes dresses. After all, Chanel had been reigning in the world of fashion for a decade now and she saw in Schiaparelli the rival she had not seen before. Story tells that one day at a party, Chanel took Schiaparelli to dance and ended up throwing her in the fireplace, setting Schiaparelli on fire. This would not stop Schiaparelli to deliver creative and interesting fashion that women wanted to wear. But in the end, there was space for both fashion creatives to exist in the world of fashion. With the beginning of the World War II, Schiaparelli returns to New York. In 1940, she will give a series of lectures in the US and receives the Neiman Marcus Fashion Award, making her the first European to receive this award. During the war, her fashion house remained opened. Collections were designed by associates based on previous creations. One of them was Hubert de Givenchy. She returns to Paris after the war, continued to create successful collections, though the Christian Dior new look was the great hit of the decade. In 1954, Schiaparelli decides to close her salon and end her fashion career. Elsa Schiaparelli died in 1975, aged 83. In 2006, Diego Della Valle purchased Schiaparelli Archives and writes to the name. Six years later, in 2012, Schiaparelli returns with a celebratory collection. 2014 sees the return of Schiaparelli to the runway for the spring couture season with Marco Zanini as creative director. Today, the creative director of Schiaparelli is Danielle Roseberry. The collections have been well received by the public and critics. On Joe Biden's inauguration as President of the United States, Lady Gaga wore a gown by Schiaparelli with a big skirt and a dove as jewelry. Recent Schiaparelli collections have been channeling some iconic creations like the lobster dress or the skeleton dress. The brand has also been investing in jewelry creations that are outstanding and surreal. Something that definitely tells us this is Schiaparelli. Schiaparelli brought a new vision for fashion. She joined fashion with art, creating conceptual clothes in opposition of only looking for its functional aspect. Either she brought art into fashion or she made fashion her art. Some consider Schiaparelli one of the surrealists whose medium was clothing. Nevertheless, her technical innovations remain relevant in the fashion world. The concept behind a fashion creation and a fashion collection would eventually become the norm. Schiaparelli was a pioneer and remains relevant to the present day. This was Fashion History Sessions on Elsa Schiaparelli. If you like this video, please like and subscribe.