EXHIBITION – SCHIAPARELLI AT THE V&A

The exhibition dedicated to Elsa Schiaparelli at the V&A, running until November 8, 2026, is a first in the UK. France already devoted an exhibition to the fashion designer in 2023, and it was about time that London discovered the eccentric creations of an artist whose touch of boldness is unmistakably Latin.

Elsa Schiaparelli is, in fact, Italian, and this nationality soon becomes her somewhat unflattering nickname in the mouth of her greatest rival, Gabrielle Chanel. The two designers could hardly be more different. Yet both are driven by a sacred passion that shines through their creations and by formidable business acumen. But let’s leave Chanel aside for the moment and return to “the Italian woman.”

Elsa Schiaparelli is born in Rome in 1890, at the Palazzo Corsini, into a family of intellectuals. Her mother, Giuseppa Maria de Dominicis, is a Neapolitan aristocrat and a descendant of the Medici family. Her father, Celestino Schiaparelli, is a renowned academic, Dean of La Sapienza university in Rome and a leading authority on Sanskrit. The family also includes an archaeologist and an astronomer.

This rich cultural environment and the family’s scholarship strongly stimulate young Elsa’s imagination. She immerses herself in stories of ancient civilizations and religious rituals. She studies philosophy for a time before writing a collection of erotic poems entitled Arethusa, inspired by an ancient Greek myth. The content of her writings so alarms her conservative parents that they forcibly send her to a religious boarding school in Switzerland. Rebelling against its strict discipline, Elsa goes on a hunger strike, forcing her parents to bring her home.

Although she enjoys a refined and comfortable lifestyle, Elsa feels stifled and dreams of adventure and discovery. She leaves for the UK to care for orphaned children, but the experience proves unsuccessful. Rather than admit defeat by returning to Rome, she flees to London to escape an arranged marriage planned by her parents with a wealthy Russian suitor for whom she feels no attraction.

In London, Schiaparelli attends a lecture on theosophy and meets the speaker Wilhelm Wendt de Kerlor. She falls under his spell, unaware that the man- who uses several identities – is in fact a charlatan who claims psychic powers, numerous academic credentials and various professions ranging from detective and criminal psychologist to physician and lecturer. Elsa marries him in 1914. She is twenty-three years old, and the couple lives on her dowry and the allowance provided by her wealthy parents.

In 1915, the couple is forced to leave the United Kingdom after De Kerlor is convicted of fortune-telling, then illegal, and deported. After a nomadic life between Paris, Cannes, Nice and Monte Carlo, Elsa and her husband leave for the US in the Spring of 1916. De Kerlor opens a “Bureau of Psychology” in New York but soon attracts the attention of the future FBI, which is as interested in his dubious professional practices as in his alleged pro-German and anti-British sympathies.

Elsa gives birth to their daughter, Maria Luisa (the future mother of actress and model Marisa Berenson and photographer Berry Berenson) in 1920, before being abandoned by her husband, who leaves her for the dancer Isadora Duncan. Fearing that De Kerlor might seek custody of their daughter, Elsa legally changes the child’s surname to Schiaparelli.

It is now 1922. Elsa depends financially on her family and her daughter suffers from polio. She moves to Paris, where she befriends Dadaist and Surrealist artists. She also soon develops a passion for fashion after visiting Paul Poiret’s ateliers.

She knows neither how to sew nor how to draft patterns. Yet this does not prevent her from creating. By draping fabric directly on the body, she designs natural, fluid and wearable garments.

1936

1937

In 1927, from her apartment, she creates sweaters decorated with large trompe-l’œil bows, which ensure her success.

1927

Elsa opens her first boutique, Pour Le Sport, at 4, Rue de la Paix before moving in 1935 to the vast Hôtel de Fontpertuis at 21, Place Vendôme. The boutique is named the Schiap Shop.

She is resolutely eccentric. She subverts the function of clothing, creating high-heeled shoes that become hats and gloves fitted with painted fingernails. Zippers, which are supposed to remain hidden, are instead highlighted. Women’s shoulders, traditionally associated with delicacy, are boldly emphasized with powerful shoulder pads. Fabrics come in vivid colours, the most famous being Shocking Pink.

Details of a jacket – 1937

The heels-hats – 1938

1939

1938

1937

1938

Jacket designed with Jean Cocteau with the talent of Lesage – 1937

Coat designed with Cocteau – 1937

1936

Her eccentricity is deliberate. More than that, it is actively sought after. During the 1930s, she collaborates with Surrealist artists, including Salvador Dalí, with whom she creates the famous Lobster Dress for Wallis Simpson. Jean-Michel Frank joins Alberto Giacometti in decorating the Schiaparelli fashion house.

Compact powder designed with Dalí – 1935

Details of the Lobster design

Detail of the Lobster Dress – 1937

Wallis Simpson wearing the Lobster Dress

Elsa is more artist than dressmaker.

Photography by Lee Miller

Her clients include Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo, Lauren Bacall and Arletty, whom she dresses for the movie Hôtel du Nord.

For Marlene Dietrich – 1937

Arletty wearing a Schiap coat – 1939

Then war arrives. Elsa Schiaparelli, who is in the US on a lecture tour entitled The Dress Makes the Woman, ultimately remains there throughout WWII, leaving the management of her Paris fashion house to her collaborators.

Upon her return to Paris, success is no longer guaranteed. Although Elsa hires a promising young designer, Hubert de Givenchy, nothing changes. The wave of Christian Dior’s New Look – which she considers rather silly – soon dominates the fashion scene.

Facing insurmountable financial difficulties, she closes her couture house in 1954 – the very year her rival Gabrielle Chanel makes her grand comeback – retaining only the perfume business until her death in 1973.

The fashion house is revived in 2014 under the creative direction of Marco Zanini and, since 2019, Daniel Roseberry. Today, it continues to celebrate and reinterpret the extraordinary creative legacy of its founder.