Unboxing Rare Elsa Schiaparelli Jewellery, Perfume Bottles & Surrealist Accessories

We're going to look at cultures exhibitions botwmau a perfume from the legendary designer Elsa Schiaparelli Elsa Schiaparelli was one of the foundational fashion designers of Interwar Paris Know about his designs his collaborations with designers especially the founders Their designs were always extraordinary utterly extraordinary and concerned with the spirit Basic exhibitions that promote foundational principles include Meeting rooms and play areas were set up for their initial orientation session These are some of the designs for Elsa Schiaparelli's exhibition displays It's a game of chance with ribbons for the shelves and the original flawed and faulty points The negative indicates the date It was designed as part of a connection in summer 1939 He felt compelled to treat him as the sole connection It would have looked dramatically striking against the backdrop of the original setting Elsa Schiaparelli frequently commissioned skilled artisans and jewelers to create jewelry for her This one was crafted by the French jeweler Jean Schlumberger Although they appear heavy they are indeed heavy That means they had light to carry And the way they received the light would have been very noisy Even though Elsa Schiaparelli transformed into natural motifs in her collections She hasn't always favored the most obvious patterns such as a flower for example Instead she favored surprising designs like this one or a button shaped like an apple Schiaparelli's clients were elite and fascinating women And this hat was worn by American avant-garde actress and model Ruth Ford She donated this hat to the V&A ensemble with several other Schiaparelli ensembles including radical garments such as the Thiers dress and the skeleton dress It's a truly magnificent piece exploring Schiaparelli's imagination and playfulness in her collections Schiaparelli launched her first perfume in 1928 It was a unisex fragrance called S It marked the beginning of a successful line of fragrances and she frequently enlisted her artist friends to design the bottles and packaging The press described her as possessing the same tangible and unexpected qualities as her dresses And the same was true for the new playful bottle designs We have an excellent selection of bottles here most of which are familiar to us from the Maison Schiaparelli archive and the first ones I'm going to show you are some of the earliest we have here launched in 1934 as part of Schiaparelli's trio of perfumes designed to be worn at different times of the day Schiap is for the daytime and you can clearly see the bold S at the front and Schiaparelli actually named many of her perfumes Starting with the letter S not only because of her name but also because she was extremely superstitious Salu this perfume here was intended to be worn in the evening featuring angular bottle designed by Jean-Michel Franck as well as the packaging Jean-Michel Franck also designed the interior of his salon and you can see it on the front of this bottle he says Salu by Schiaparelli And it also has an S monogram on the front And these are the original scents incidentally I can say this because even with the beds closed the taste remains extremely strong This particular fragrance was one of Schiaparelli's most famous Stunning from 1937 The bottle was designed by Argentine surrealist artist Leon Orfini The bottle was designed to resemble the body of Mae West a provocative actor and actress since the 1930s At the time Schiaparelli designed costumes for Mae West's film Every Day's a Holiday And her mannequin was in the Schiaparelli studio So she seized the opportunity to design the bottle based on her figure And it was even designed to resemble a tailored coat It has a measuring tape running through the legs as well as very nice details such as the glass flowers at the back This other fragrance was also inspired by the body of an actor and has been around since 1937 It 's called Zut just like in French Zutéra and it is inspired by a story from Schiaparelli lightened by having seen a garment mishap at a French theater where the actor's hairstyle came undone and you can see his flowers So this is a rather daring perfume bottle design And this one also comes from this box which you can see here Snuff was Schiaparelli 's only fragrance for men or for Monsieur as indicated on the box It was launched in 1939 and was shaped like a smoke pipe packaged in a tobacco box complete with fake tobacco made from knitted cellulose It's probably inspired by René Magritte's surrealist painting The Treachery of Images which depicts a pipe with the sloga This is not a pipe Another nod to Schiaparelli's wit and surrealist sensibilities This next fragrance from 1952 is called Succifu which means success It features a magnificent leaf-inspired design with green and gold as well as a box shaped like an inverted heart featuring a very unusual color combination cluding Schiaparelli's signature color Shocking Pink This 1952 fragrance is called Sport And it has a hyper-realistic design It's made to resemble a miniature champagne bottle from her mother Schiaparelli was an entrepreneur And although she worked with artists she also collaborated with major corporations such as her mother's Champagne house It's a limited-edition perfume bottle and even though this one hasn't been opened I wouldn 't be surprised if some people He didn't try to drink it It's a realistic design even complete with a champagne-style box At the time these fragrances were created the bottle designs were truly revolutionary and had firmly broken away comparison with Schiaparelli's contemporaries Schiaparelli was renowned for collaborating with artists and these two pieces are truly exciting as they mark her firs collaboration with the famous surrealist Salvador Dali These are makeup compacts at were created in 1935 to coincide with the opening of his new salon on Place Vendôme in Paris It came in several colors including tortoiseshell and black Dali designed these compact discs so they look like rotary phone bottles where you'd use your finger in those round holes to press a phone number Dali often used telephone bottles in his artworks notably in his sculpture * Lobster Telephone* from 1938 It's therefore very interesting to see that this is one of the earliest examples of using a phone bottle and that this compact design became so popular e has been internationally dismissed as you can see from the text next to number 1 here which states in Frenc which means dismissal in all countries So I'll open it for you to show you the inside As you can see He has the original compact mirror and then a small amount of powder where the powder would have been It was one of the standout accessories from the Elsa Schiaparelli collection The title of the collection truly says it all about its approach to fashion You might think of buttons as a single functional fastening but for Schiaparelli they are miniature works of art and another way for him to express his creative flair Schiaparelli's buttons arrived in every shape size and style and here we have a selection most of which are familiar to us from the Maison Schiaparelli archive One of my favorites here is the pinot and hazelnut button as well as this button here with a blue eye and yellow lips another monogram of S for Schiaparelli and a handful of yellow gold as well as a yellow gold padlock which was a recurring motif for Schiaparelli often found on the embroidery of his April garment This life-sized blue eye It would have been too big to fit in a regular button but would have loved a bright blue garment from the Schiaparelli collection in October 1937 Schiaparelli's buttons and the wardrobe reveal the essence From his miniature collection These three golden buttons were located at the front of a handful of April from the Schiaparelli music collection They are painted plaster sculptures made by French artist Jean Clément with whom Schiaparelli frequently collaborated This is not actually a button but a brooch from Schiaparelli's 1938 circus collection It is shaped like a blue eye a symbol greatly favored by Schiaparelli His astronomy-obsessed uncle named the three beauty marks on his face after the Blue Eye constellation Thus the constellation of the blue eye has become a lucky charm for her I love these pieces because they showcase Schiaparelli paid exquisite attention to detail and how her garment made people look twice As we have seen Schiaparelli' s designs were bold courageous and innovative She continued to push the boundaries Between fashion and art from her couture garments down to the smallest button