Schiaparelli was fashion x art’s founding father, using her connections in the avantgarde to define her brand. Her influence is everywhere, not least in the fashion-meets-art collaboration. She also produced the first newspaper print fabric in 1935, way before Galliano would popularise his in the 1980s and 90s and presented collections with conceptual themes (“Pagan”, “Circus”, “Zodiac” etc.) before anyone else. Her name is less familiar today although she was the first to introduce zips to high fashion (1929), to design trompe l’oeil garments (a 1927 sweater which launched her career) and enjoyed experimenting with early synthetic textiles. It feels unfair that Elsa Schiaparelli’s rival Coco Chanel became the most eminent star of fashion when it was Schiaparelli’s quirky iconoclasm that pioneered so much of its visual lexicon. As Europe stood poised on the brink of another war, this celebrated dress – a Surrealist triumph in faux-ripped crepe – offered a violent, inventive glamour that foretold the horrors to come. A pioneer in uniting the avant garde of art with fashion, she created The Tears Dress with Salvador Dalí in 1938. For too long Elsa Schiaparelli has been unfairly been seen as less important than Coco Chanel.
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