The Musée des Arts Décoratifs (MAD) houses many of Elsa Schiaparelli’s seminal fashion items.

After staying dormant for decades, the label was re-launched in 2014 thanks to couturiers like Christian Lacroix and

SHOCKING  ! THE SURREAL WORLDS OF ELSA SCHIAPARELLI

Bertrand Guyon.

Since 2019, when Daniel Roseberry was appointed artistic director, the name Schiaparelli is once again in fashion’s vanguard.

This wonderful exhibition runs across seven spaces arranged thematically and chronologically, foregrounding Schiaparelli’s collaborations with various major artists.

There are photographs by Cecil Beaton, Hoyningen-Huene and Man Ray; paintings by Dali and Picasso, illustrations by Christian Bérard and Jean Cocteau... There are also fashions designed by Elsa Schiaparelli’s mentor Paul Poiret and later tribute designs by Yves Saint Laurent, Azzedine Alaïa and John Galliano. Roseberry’s larger-than-life Schiaparelli-inspired fashions are dispersed throughout.

One section focuses on her long-term relationship with the embroidery house Lesage; another her perfumes (flacons and packaging are displayed beneath glass domes).

“The idea was to pay homage to Elsa’s relationship with artists, but also with visual culture,” explained curator Olivier Gabet.  “It’s very interesting for us to show she has this visual and literary culture that very few people had at the time.”

SHOCKING ! THE SURREAL WORLDS OF ELSA SCHIAPARELLI
Musée des Arts décoratifs
107-111, rue de Rivoli
75001 Paris
from July 6 , 2022 to January 22, 2023

Elsa Schiaparelli  10 September 1890 – 13 November 1973) was a fashion designer from an Italian aristocratic background. She created the house of Schiaparelli in Paris in 1927, which she managed from the 1930s to the 1950s. . Along with Coco Chanel, her greatest rival, she is regarded as one of the most prominent European figures in fashion between the two World Wars. Her clients included the heiress Daisy Fellowes and actress Mae West.

Review:    Richard Gilles (Paris) is slightly past his prime, but still a vivacious true Parisian spirit. He has worked as a journalist in the spheres of the arts and luxury for the last few decades and is now the happy correspondent for QueerGuru in the City of Lights.