Tex’s ‘outside’ turned Parisian fashion on its head

A couture house is rarely better known for its work today than it was a century ago. Dior, Chanel and Balenciaga are among the most famous Parisian fashion labels to tap into their significant heritage to prove what they’re doing now. But less well known is Elsa Schiaparelli, who founded her flagship business in 1927 and closed it in 1954 after running up huge debts.

Dormant for 60 years, Schiaparelli was relaunched in 2012 to great fanfare by Italian fashion tycoon Diego Della Valle, chairman of the Tod’s Group. Fabled guest designer Christian Lacroix was registered to create the first collection, which was presented in the headquarters where the Schiaparellis were in love at 21, Place Vendome.

But it wasn’t until American singer Lady Gaga showed up in a stunning custom-designed dress to sing at President Biden’s inauguration that Chiparelli’s name registered on anyone’s radar outside of the fashion world. The designer of that dress was Daniel Roseberry, the thoughtful, quietly spoken Texan son of an Anglican minister who was appointed creative director of the house of Chiparelli in April 2019.

Schiaparelli was a competitor of Gabriel Chanel and one of the most respected fashion names of the first half of the 20th century. Her pioneering collaborations included connections with real artists such as Jean Cocteau, Man Ray and Salvador Dali. Her use of “shocking” pink and whimsical details, including a shoe hat, lobster skirt, trompe d’oeil teardrop dress, and drawer pocket details are examples of her irreverent design vocabulary. These relationships are explored in Shock! Elsa Schiaparelli’s Surreal World at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs exhibition in Paris, which opened this summer and runs through January 22.

In just 25 years, Schiaparelli transformed fashion into a natural expression of the avant-garde. Curious about everything and enjoying every new thing that came her way, she embodied a vision of bright and vibrant Paris. In November 1934 Harper’s Bazaar He described her as “the most daring and original talent in the French fashion world… with volcanic energy and an amazing sense of modern innovation.

In the year Yves Saint Laurent similarly said, “When she died, he closed her eyes.”

Schiaparelli was not just a dressmaker, but a “brand maker,” Rosebery said, sitting in the cluttered white studio where he spent the weekend alone during the pandemic. City. As if Schiaparelli’s ghost were looking over his shoulder, he realizes in hindsight that thinking about her legacy is a privileged and incredibly inspiring moment.

“Her legacy is incredibly modern — the house is complicated because her work is unique and singular, but it’s still very relevant today,” Roseberry says, noting that rebooting high-rises doesn’t always work. Like Vionnet, as he points out, it is not a lasting vision, but who invented the method of how to cut clothes.

Rosebery believes the exhibition at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs is “Elsa’s contribution to fashion – she was the first person to cross fashion with pop culture, but with the artists who were in pop culture at the time.”

The creative dialogue between fashion and art has become commonplace in the modern world, but Shiaparelli was the first to initiate that dialogue. Perhaps because of her background, she was drawn to the bohemian world of artists.

An aristocrat, she grew up in an Italian Baroque palace surrounded by Italian Renaissance and classical antiquity and intellectually, this is reflected in her collections. Her father was a scholar of the Islamic world and the Middle Ages, and her uncle was a famous astronomer. Schiaparelli therefore felt more comfortable in the company of artists than in the Parisian “society” of her time.

She was an outsider, but Roseberry can relate to coming to Paris as a little-known designer from Texas who spent 11 years working in New York at Thom Browne, a designer who himself liked to play with surrealist concepts. “I see that there’s a freedom in being an outsider that gives you permission to play or not play by the rules,” Roseberry says. “I think there’s something about this outsider’s perspective. Being familiar with something you didn’t grow up with gives you a different perspective.”

The house has given him the freedom to be himself, and of his frequent encounters with Schiaparelli, “there are also things that are unique and mine,” says Roseberry.

Ever since she enrolled in life drawing classes at age 16, part of the creative process has entered her maddened world of tailoring and evaluating how to approach the painting. The famous hourglass body of the Schiaparelli signature perfume bottle has been replicated on the Roseberry jackets, creating a trompe l’oeil detail with a tape measure.

However, it is the eye-catching decorations that make people sit and show their body parts. The gold body admits that the shoot has created a visceral reaction in the fashion world. In the year With ear, eye, tooth and nose jewelry, gold toes on black heels, and gold toes on a lung necklace, Bella Hadid wore a plunging neckline dress to the Cannes Film Festival last year, referencing the jewels of the 1930s, 1970s and 1980s. year. They were the first surrealist tropes that could exist in a modern environment – but he knows that the humor can wear thin, so expect something new and different in the coming seasons.

All in all, Roseberry takes a very restrained approach to the extraordinary legacy that Elsa Schiaparelli left behind.

“I think simply wearing the artifacts in the archives can be a huge burden. Visually they’re very impressive and very unique and they’re not even driven in the image, it’s more different than that,” explains Roseberry.

He wants to inspire the same joy in seeing something new that Schiaparelli did in her day without constantly impersonating her work. I don’t think she wants it today. The exhibition features not only Schiaparelli’s archives, but also the work of designers such as Azzedine Alaia and John Galliano inspired by the couturier and, of course, Roseberry’s collections, including the Black Velvet Corset and 2022. Last month, Cate Blanchett wore pants with hand-painted flowers to the Venice Film Festival and Lady Gaga’s famous prom dress.

Roseberry has only been at Schiaparelli for three years, but beyond Lady Gaga, it’s also graced many memorable red carpet moments with stars like Adele, Cardi B, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Carey Mulligan. His favorite looks were Lady Gaga and Bella Hadid, whose skin-tight bodycon dress Beyoncé wore the night she won multiple Grammys for a singer.

“I’m honored to be a part of that,” Roseberry muses, but describes the exhibition opening, sharing the stage with the great Elsa Schiaparelli, as “a mind-blowing moment that will go down in memory.” It has been a fascinating sight for the man who came to Texas.

Updated: October 13, 2022, 6:15 am