Surrealism in Fashion: The Avant-garde Designs of Elsa Schiaparelli 5/16/2015 1

Elsa Schiaparelli: an important avant-garde fashion designer worked in Paris in the 1920s & 30s. 5/16/2015 2

Schiaparelli & Chanel worked during the same period. Both started out designing sweaters — but this is where the similarities end. 5/16/2015 3

Schiaparelli was a surrealist artist that used fashion as her medium. She arranged realistic images in a nonsensical way in her hat forms and garment decorations. 5/16/2015 4

Elsa Schiaparelli broke down the walls dividing art and fashion. 5/16/ The Skeleton Dress Elsa Schiaparelli France, 1938 Silk crepe

She considered designing an art rather than a profession. 5/16/2015 6

Her first breakthrough design: the tromp l'oeil sweater. Her first breakthrough design: the tromp l'oeil sweater. 5/16/2015 7

This was the first in a long list: She is also said to have invented: the "wedgie“ heel, shoulder pads, animal print fabrics. 5/16/2015 8

Surrealist artist Salvadore Dali had a huge impact on the work of fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli in the 1930s. Remember him? 5/16/2015 9

She worked with Dali to create designs such as: the lamb-cutlet hat, the brain hat, the shoe hat, & a suit with pockets that looked like a chest of drawers. 5/16/ Schiaparelli's Fall-Winter collection

Lobster Telephone 1936 Téléphone - Homard 5/16/ Dali custom-designed this lobster phone for an eccentric collecter. He and Schiaparelli then used the motif on...

... this elegant lobster dress. Schiaparelli wanted to use her designs to make the unconventional acceptable. 5/16/ The 1937 Lobster Dress featured a large lobster Dali painted onto the skirt of a simple evening gown.

Her basic garments were simple and fashionable, but she used military themes, the zodiac, circus images, lobsters, etc. to add unique detail. 5/16/

She used oversized buttons in the shape of peanuts, bumblebees, and rams' heads — all imagery not previously associated with fashion garments in the 1930s. 5/16/

Left: Dinner Suit, Green silk crepe and green silk velvet embroidered with metallic thread and red and pink rhinestones with half dome shaped plastic buttons inset with flowers Right: Evening jacket, Deep magenta rayon crepe embroidered with metallic thread and polychrome sequins with plastic insect buttons 5/16/

She loved to work in black and white, but her favourite colour was Shocking Pink — a brilliant pink somewhere between fuchsia and red. It became the hallmark of her couture house. 5/16/ Vintage Schiaparelli hat boxes are still sought after by collectors.

HER LEGACY: She was the first to use brightly coloured zippers. She made the teeth out of coloured plastic and dyed the tape to match fabric. Zippers became a design detail in her sportswear and later in her evening dresses. 5/16/

She was the first to use many "new" technologies of her time: acrylic, cellophane, metal threads she used synthetic materials being used for the first time in couture garments. 5/16/

Elsa Schiaparelli remains an everlasting influence on contemporary fashion. 5/16/ Schiaparelli wearing her famous shoe hat. om/en/collections_haute _couture_video

5/16/ Why do you think her work still stirs such passion?

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ADDITIONAL RESOURCES Baudot, Francois. Fashion: The Twentieth Century NY, NY: Universe Publishing, shrimptoncouture.blogspot.com/2009/05/elsa-sc web sources retrieved July 11, /16/

Answer the following 2 questions in your sketchbook. 1.Schiaparelli shocked as well as entertained the public with her belief that good taste was less important than creativeness, outrageousness, and fun. Why do you think the fashion conscious people of the 1930s embraced her work so strongly? 5/16/

2.Her work is still internationally celebrated on the Internet, in museums and through organizations and conventions. 5/16/