Schiaparelli shows the surreal fantasies of fashion in Paris

Times

07-07-2025

There is no more fantastical variety of fashion than couture, a phenomenon that not only makes no pretence at reality but defines itself by its very irreality.
Which is why one can see the rationale at the heart of what Daniel Roseberry does at Schiaparelli, determinedly pushing the surrealist lexicon of Elsa Schiaparelli — who founded her brand in 1927 — into the 21st century.
It was Schiaparelli who famously said 'in difficult times fashion is always outrageous'. Roseberry certainly ticked that box in his opening show of Paris couture week on Monday.
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The front row included a remarkably garbed Dua Lipa and Cardi B, as well as Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu of Emily in Paris.
A vermilion evening gown came with a breastplate of the most literal variety, the moulded bustier shaped like a bosom complete with nipples. More surrealist still was the fact that, as the model walked past, the back of said dress revealed itself to be a version of similar. This wasn't, then, a case of having eyes in the back of your head, so much as, er, mammillae…
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Another black and white iteration came accessorised with an outsize necklace of dangling fish and prawns. Not that crustacean couture is anything new. This was a nod to that most famous Schiaparelli creation of yore, the so-called lobster dress of 1937, which was decorated with a painting by Salvador Dali.
Roseberry spoke after the show of how 'this was definitely the most entrenched in the archives that I have been'. He drew inspiration more particularly, he continued, from how his celebrated antecedent would dress herself. 'During the day Elsa Schiaparelli wore these square-shouldered jackets, like a toy-soldier silhouette. Then in the evening she would become a swan, a surrealist.' Sure enough, for every phantasmagoric piece of evening wear there was some sharp tailoring.
The heavily embellished pedal pusher two-pieces called to mind the uniform of a matador, the wide-leg trouser suits Katharine Hepburn in her pomp, while the nipped-in skirt suits were more straight-forwardly Avenue Montaigne.