Elsa Schiaparelli

Elsa Schiaparelli (1890-1973) is among the most original figures in the history of twentieth-century fashion. In a forty year career that began in 1926, she is best remembered for her Surrealist-inspired designs of the 1930s. Despite the fact that Schiaparelli worked in the traditional method of applying decorative, two-dimensional images to the surfaces of her clothing rather than employing innovative construction techniques, she was a revolutionary designer who became the first couturier to integrate sophisticated and complex artistic concepts into highly wearable material. Schiaparelli viewed the creation of clothing in terms of artistic inspiration and regarded fashion as much more than a craft, stating in her autobiography, Shocking Life, that "dress designing . . . is to me not a profession, but an art."

Born to a conservative, aristocratic Roman family, Elsa Maria Luisa Schiaparelli exhibited early signs of rebelliousness and artistic inclination that would become the cornerstones of her creativity. At age fourteen, for example, she was sent to a convent for publishing a set of erotic poems; she was released only after going on a hunger strike. Ten years later, she married the eccentric theosophist Compte William de Wendt de Kerlor—a mere two days after hearing his lecture in London on "the powers of the soul over the body, magic, and eternal youth." Within two years, the couple moved to New York, had a child, and divorced. With no money and an infant to support, Schiaparelli took a series of odd jobs that in 1922 landed her in Paris, the city she would thereafter consider her home. By 1926, she began a business selling chic and playful sportswear. Five years later, at the height of the Depression, Schiaparelli opened her couture house on the rue de la Paix.

During the apex of her creativity, the years 1934 to 1940, Schiaparelli incorporated Surrealist motifs in her designs and collaborated with such artists as Salvador Dali and Jean Cocteau, as well as artisans such as Albert Lesage and Jean Clement. Schiaparelli was enthralled by the Surrealists’ exploration of the unconscious and their creation of works filled with strange, and sometimes shocking, dream imagery. Unlike the male Surrealists, however, Schiaparelli did not focus on issues of sexual repression and violence. Instead, she explored questions of female disguise and masquerade, distancing herself from Dali and Max Ernst, among others, by incorporating more playful and witty aspects of Surrealism's eroticism. Beginning in 1937, Schiaparelli pioneered the concept of seasonal collections created around a single, unified theme such as: "Circus," "Butterflies," "Pagan," "Astrology," "Commedia dell' Arte," and "Music." Not only did these collections convey Schiaparelli's originality, they presaged the current trend among designers to create thematic runway presentations.

The label was revived in 2013 with Christian Lacroix designing a Couture capsule collection, at which time former Rochas designer Marco Zanini was appointed creative director until 2014. The house of Schiaparelli hired Valentino's Bertrand Guyon late in 2014 after Zanini's abrupt departure after two collections.