5 Things Not To Miss At The V&A’s New Schiaparelli Exhibition
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16 hours ago
Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art opens this Saturday
‘No one knows how to say Schiaparelli, but everyone knows what it means.’ These words, spoken decades ago by Salvador Dalí, still ring true today. As one of industry’s biggest changemakers, Elsa Schiaparelli was often described as someone who ‘trampled down everything that was commonplace’ in favour of pushing the boundaries of art and fashion.
And now, for the first time, Elsa Schiaparelli will have her very own headline exhibition in the UK. Opening on Saturday 28 March, C&TH got an early look at the V&A’s groundbreaking new exhibition, Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art. Here’s what you can expect, plus the curators’ picks of unmissable highlights.
What To Expect From The V&A’s Latest Fashion Exhibition
It’s a common rhetoric that Elsa Schiaparelli was something of an outsider in the fashion world. Born in Rome in 1890, Schiaparelli grew up in a family of intellectuals and aristocrats – but found herself escaping to Paris in the 1920s in pursuit of a life that fuelled her artistic imagination. Despite her lack of training, she would become one of the most talked about dress designers of interwar Paris.
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‘It was in Paris that she founded her fashion house and forged her most enduring alliances, not with traditional dressmakers, but with the avant garde,’ adds Sonnet Stanfill, one of the curators behind Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art. ‘She had over 400 employees who were producing over 7,000 couture garments a year. The designer’s genius lay both in spectacle but also in innovation. She pioneered the use of unconventional materials, plastics, zips as visible design features, even insects and also newspaper prints, elevating the everyday to the extraordinary. Her signature colour, shocking pink, was a declaration bold, irreverent and impossible to ignore in an era often characterised by restraint. Elsa Schiaparelli insisted on exuberance.’
But why tell her story now? Despite over 50 years having passed since her death, the name ‘Schiaparelli’ continues to shake the industry – both in its history, and its present story under current creative director, Daniel Rosebery. (Most will, for example, recognise the golden lungs exhibited in the first room, worn by model Bella Hadid on the 2021 Cannes Film Festival red carpet.)
Exhibition details (photo by the Victoria & Albert Museum)
But beyond its unwavering relevance, the V&A has a special bond with the Parisian fashion house, McKever explains. ‘The V&A has the UK’s largest collection of works by Elsa Schiaparelli – and for a long time, we have been wanting to share that collection with the public,’ she tells C&TH. ‘Alongside loans from other organisations like the Philadelphia Museum of Art, we have been able to bring together a really extraordinary selection of her work.
‘Hosting the exhibition in London is important to us too, in the sense that Schiaparelli loved the city – she loved the UK, she loved British textiles, and she had a house here on upper Grosvenor Street in the 1930s,’ she continues. ‘And so, in a sense, it’s a kind of homecoming for the designer.’
‘She loved this country, its freedom of expression, its craft, traditions, country houses, monarchy, hubs, and its literature of heinous murder mysteries,’ added Tristram Hunt, director of the V&A. ‘“Above all, I dearly love the English,” she wrote, “because they’re mad, mad, mad.” (Although she could never accustom herself to the hallowed British tea break, which she considered a “dark and unbreakable brew”.)’
Exhibition view from Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art (photo by the Victoria & Albert Museum)
And with many other notable designers already having made the halls of the museum into their personal runway – Chanel, Dior, McQueen, to name a few – it was only a matter of time before Schiaparelli followed in their well-dressed footsteps. ‘As the host of the UK’s national collection of fashion and textiles, we’re really excited to be able to share the most important designers of the 20th century – before and since – with our public,’ says McKever. ‘Schiaparelli is someone who’s so well represented in our collection, and someone who really brings together the interdisciplinary strands of the V&A.
‘We really want to let people dive into the world of Elsa Schiaparelli, and to really see these garments up close is such an extraordinary opportunity for people,’ she adds. ‘These are so beautifully crafted. There are so many incredible details, and being able to see the garments, often alongside artworks inspired by or inspiring them, is really thrilling.’
Curators’ Picks: Highlights From Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art At The V&A
The Skeleton Dress by Elsa Schiaparelli, 1938 (photo by the Victoria & Albert Museum)
The Skeleton Dress
Schiaparelli’s key highlights start at the very beginning of the exhibition. The first room is occupied by just a handful of pieces, but make sure to veer left. It’s here that you’ll find the now-famous skeleton dress.
The gown, created by Schiaparelli in 1938, is one of the designer’s most famous pieces: an all-black ensemble with bones raised in relief, as though pressing out of the fabric. ‘It’s the only known example in existence,’ says McKever. ‘Considering the time in which it was made, we can only imagine how shocking a garment it would have been. But it’s so chic. The skeleton – the bones, the ribs, down through to the hips – is brought to the surface in this very sculptural way.’
In a later room, the dress is revisited – this time with sketches by collaborator Salvador Dalí. ‘We’re showcasing some of the drawings that Dalí made, but what’s wonderful about them is that they’re inscribed with small notes like: “Dear Elsa. I love this idea of bones on the outside enormously. Have a good day. See you tomorrow night.” And so you really get a sense of those two working closely together.’
The Shoe Hat by Elsa Schiaparelli (photo by Charlie Colville)
The Shoe Hat
Another Dalí creation not to miss – although this one was made mostly popular by his wife, Gala – is the shoe hat. ‘Gala Dali was a big wearer of Schiaparelli, and so she’s really part of that world,’ notes McKever. ‘And the shoe hat was kind of [Gala’s] idea. On one occasion she put a shoe on her husband’s head, and that’s where the hat originates from.’
Located in the middle of the exhibition’s Creative Constellations section, the hat acts as a key example of Schiaparelli’s creative reach – both as a designer and an artist. ‘I think bringing in more figures from Schiaparelli’s circle is really important,’ says McKever. Pointing around the room at works by Dali (who considered her premises at Place Vendome to be the beating heart of surrealist Paris), Man Ray, Leonor Fini, Picasso and Cocteau, the curator adds that, ‘Elsa Schiaparelli’s uniquely modern and metamorphic designs captured the imagination of the artists in her orbit, and brought the irreverence and creativity of modern art into her designers.’
(L to R) Coat by Elsa Schiaparelli and Jean Cocteau, 1937, cocktail dress by Daniel Roseberry for Schiaparelli, 2021 (photos by the Victoria & Albert Museum)
The Cocteau Coat
It’s also in this section of the exhibition that you’ll see the past and present of the Schiaparelli label collide. ‘We’re exhibiting a coat created by Schiaparelli in collaboration with Jean Cocteau,’ says McKever. Cocteau, another artist who sat in Elsa Schiaparelli’s surrealist circle, is known best within the fashion world for his work on this coat, which featured ‘extraordinary embroidery on the back depicting these mirrored kissing faces, a well-known Cocteau motif’. The coat, which dates back to 1937, is displayed alongside early drawings of the motif and initial sketches of the design, again highlighting how these conversations between creatives resulted in wearable art.
And the second chapter of the story, which brings the house into the 21st century, sits just a few feet away. ‘At the intersection of our fragrance and jewellery displays, there’s a look by Daniel Roseberry from his Autumn/Winter 2021 collection,’ points out fellow exhibition curator Lydia Caston. ‘The collection itself was inspired by the Jean Cocteau evening coat, and this garment in particular features the same pleated roses in full bloom on its voluminous sleeves. It’s a homage to Elsa Schiaparelli’s important relationship with artists.’
Schiaparellie’s Shocking Perfume (photo by the Victoria & Albert Museum)
The Shocking Perfume
The curators’ ‘wild card’ pick? A bottle of perfume. But this isn’t just any old bottle of perfume. Schiaparelli’s most famous fragrance, Shocking, is one of the house’s legacy creations – and remains a popular choice at beauty counters today.
‘I’m really thrilled that we can showcase the Shocking perfume bottle, because it was so popular in its day, and it has become so iconic,’ notes McKever. Modelled on the female form, the bottle was commissioned out to surrealist artist Leonor Fini, who had one specific (and very famous) reference in mind. ‘It’s based on the dress form of Mae West, an actor who Schiaparelli designed many costumes for during this period – and so the dress form was already in the atelier,’ reveals McKever. ‘You have this extraordinary layering of powerful early 20th century women – Elsa, Schiaparelli, Leonor Fini and Mae West – all in one object.’
Ariana Grande’s 2025 Academy Awards bespoke couture gown (photo by the Victoria & Albert Museum)
The Oscars Dress
Don’t forget the finale. It’s here that you’ll see Schiaparelli as it is today, with Roseberry at the label’s helm. The V&A’s own red carpets are filled with the ‘viral’ looks that have made Schiaparelli a household name amongst the next generation: the bedazzled robot baby that walked the spring/Summer 2024 runway, the revised skeleton dress worn by Dua Lipa at the 2024 Golden Globes, and the gold coral sculpture created for the designer’s Spring/Summer 2022 collection.
But one dress in particular will be pretty memorable for fans of the label. ‘Our finale opens with a custom couture gown, worn by Ariana Grande at the 2025 Academy Awards,’ says Caston. The sparkling red gown, which the star wore for a performance with her Wicked co-star Cynthia Erivo, featured a double-pronged design detail: a red heel emerging from the back. Both a nod to the franchise’s iconic ruby red slippers and Schiaparelli’s subversion of conventional design (again, see the shoe hat), Caston notes how ‘it weaves together the past and present at the fashion house, highlighting Elsa Schiaparelli’s enduring creative legacy and fearless imagination alongside the evocative designs by Daniel Rosebery.’
How To Get Tickets For The V&A’s Schiaparelli Exhibition
Tickets for the V&A’s Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art are now on sale at vam.ac.uk. (Weekday tickets start from £28 and weekend tickets start from £30. Members go free, and don’t need to book.)
