1890- Rome-1973-New York -An artist who made clothes. [Un(e) artiste qui faisait des vêtements]

“That Italian woman who makes clothes” (Chanel)

Her portrait: PICASSO – the famous painting: the birds in a cage with cards…

Early childhood

St Peter (Rome)

The Swiss guards

The uncle (a famous astronomer)

The ‘enigmatic’ canals of Mars

The Astrological collection

Schiaparelli by Bérard

Christian Bérard, also known as Bébé, was a French artist, fashion illustrator and designer. Bérard and his lover Boris Kochno, who worked for the Ballets Russes. Bérard was also a close friend of Coco Chanel.

Elsa Schiaparelli Rome 1890 Paris 1913 – ’10 days in Paris’ London 1913 New York 1919 Paris 1923 “ If I have become what I am, I owe it to two distinct things: poverty and Paris.” (ES)

“For me, [fashion] is a very difficult and frustrating art, for as soon as a dress is born, it belongs to the past. As soon as it is created, it escapes you. A dress cannot be hung on the wall like a painting, nor stay impeccable et have the life of a well-preserved book.” (S’)

Paris In her shop, (upstairs) on Place Vendôme, you can see the column behind the window.

Friend of Paul Poiret whom she met in Paris

After London and New York, Schiap moves to Paris in : First show room, 4 rue de la Paix, “Schiaparelli = pour le Sport” Later, 21 place Vendôme 1927 starts knitwear collections In 1930, creates the ‘jupe culotte’. (pant skirt) 1930: evening dresses with visible zippers

Sportswear, Lili Alvarez (1931)

Lili Alvarez in a Schiaparelli culotte creating a stir as she walks into the tennis court of Wimbledon (1931)

Elsa frequents the dada and surrealist circles in Paris, going to the bar-dance-hall Le Boeuf sur le toit….[The Bull on the rooftop] Among some of the customers, Cocteau, Picabia, Chanel etc. We will see the influences of these associations in her work.

How the ‘shoe-hat’ came about….

Met and worked with Surrealist artists such as Dali: the shoe-hat ( )

Salvator Dali’s inspiration

Officiel de la mode

Gala with Dali-Schiaparelli hat

Elsa S. & S. Dali

Dali’s hat at the St-Petersburg’s Dali museum 0WKnq7kck 0WKnq7kck

Lobster dress, collaboration with Dali (1937)

Lobster telephone (Dali 1936)

The other little hat

Le boeuf sur le toit

A Picabia sketch at the bar

Cocteau

Jacket designed by Cocteau for S’ in 1937 Auctioned at Drouot for 175,000 € in 2009.

The trompe-l’oeil sweater 1927 (Armenian knitting)

Armenian sweater

Art deco to the left, plastic necklace, right, in plastic

Man Ray, Le Beau Temps 1939

Man Ray painted Le Beau Temps—a phrase he understood to mean “the good times”—just before the outbreak of World War II; its disturbing content and bitterly ironic title reflect his anxiety and despair over the impending conflict. The monstrous creatures on the right, making love and war, salute the minotaur of Pablo Picasso, whose recent mural, Guernica, may have inspired Man Ray to make his own painting of this dark moment in world history.

Man Ray (born Emmanuel Radnitzky, August 27, 1890 – November 18, 1976) was an American visual artist who spent most of his career in France. He was a significant contributor to the Dada and Surrealist movements,...

Evening coat Harlequin coat The Modern comedy/ Commedia del Arte collec- -tion -Strong color, and -Graphism, felt triangles

WHEN TIMES ARE DIFFICULT FASHION IS ALWAYS OUTRAGEOUS

1938 TEARS (DALI ) Collection “Circus”

Skeleton dress

Embroidery by Lesage

Let’s talk about colors and perfumes and influences on S’

PINK “From her phials and stills gushed singular colors, venomous greens, sinister violets, velvety strange medieval manuscript illuminations. And one fine day, suddenly roaring like a great wild beast in anger, she smashed her entire magician’s laboratory and with an ogress’s frenzied laughter managed to grab the formula for that explosive astounding, flabbergasting Pink! A sort of cyclamen, a magenta, a flaming, a defiance, a panic. She alone could have given to a pink the nerve of a red. A pink that went on to devour everything in its path, invade everything by ricocheting, make everything quake. A neon pink, an unreal pink, an aggressive, brawling, warrior pink, as intense as a Doge’s wife red. Shocking Pink! (Yves Saint-Laurent)

Schiaparelli liked mauve and pink Shocking (perfume, 1937)

Shocking, the bust of Mae West

Bottle designed by Leonor Fini, a female surrealist artist living in France.

Sleeping 1938 Zut

Salut

“Once she had added that electric she-devil’s color to the range of pinks, she shut herself up in black. She burrowed underground.” (YSL)

Hoynengen-Huene 1938

Man Ray 1936

Van Dongen 1935

She couldn't sew and she didn't sketch, yet Elsa Schiaparelli stormed Paris fashion in the 1920s and 1930s. The lofty legacy she created continues to resonate today, as evidenced by both the number of designers who flooded the runways for spring with looks indebted to the great couturier and the exhibition at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art "Elsa Schiaparelli and Miuccia Prada: On Fashion."

Distinctive booties ( leather + silk )

Evening dress with butterfly print

A detail of butterfly dress

SCHIAPARELLI AND FILM Mae West, Marlene Dietrich, Zsa Zsa Gabor…

Marlene Dietrich wears Schiaparelli and in synch with her style

Toulouse-Lautrec's Moulin Rouge Through Schiaparelli's Eyes

Uncredited at first, Schiaparelli designed Zsa Zsa Gabor’s costumes (John Huston, 1952)

Daisy Fellowes, 1935

Mini quiz 1. What was Schiaparelli’s favorite color? 2. Name one Surrealist artist who worked with her? 3. Which designer helped her career and was a friend? 4. What’s significant about her perfumes? 5. What type of garment does she first make?