{"id":856300,"date":"2026-03-28T15:09:21","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T15:09:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/856300\/"},"modified":"2026-03-28T15:09:21","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T15:09:21","slug":"the-london-vas-new-exhibit-emphasizes-schiaparellis-surrealist-roots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/856300\/","title":{"rendered":"The London V&A\u2019s New Exhibit Emphasizes Schiaparelli\u2019s Surrealist Roots"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Estimated3 min read<\/p>\n

Above: Elsa Schiaparelli in her boutique at 21 Place Vend\u00f4me, Harper’s Bazaar, October 1935.<\/p>\n

Founded in 1927, shuttered in 1954, and resurrected in 2012, the fashion house Schiaparelli<\/a> has undergone a major resurgence under creative director Daniel Roseberry. Surrealism is once again enthralling consumers seeking an escape from reality, just as it did in the interwar period of the 1930s. In an ode to this revival, London\u2019s V&A museum is examining Elsa Schiaparelli, the brand she built, and its comeback, in a new exhibition, \u201cSchiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art,\u201d<\/a> which opens this weekend.<\/p>\n

The exhibit showcases the broad impact of Elsa Schiaparelli, who died in 1973, in fashion, art, and design, as she collaborated with everyone from Salvador Dal\u00ed to Jean-Michel Frank. \u201cShe brought the irreverence and creativity of modern art into her designs, publicity, even her couture salons,\u201d said V&A art curator Rosalind McKever at the exhibition preview.<\/p>\n

\"schiaparelliCourtesy V&A Museum<\/p>\n

\u201cSchiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art\u201d at V&A South Kensington.<\/p>\n

Organized in collaboration with the fashion house, the show features more than 400 items, including 100 fashion ensembles and 50 artworks, along with jewelry, perfume bottles, and archival materials spanning from the 1920s to the present day. Visitors will see many of Schiaparelli\u2019s Surrealist designs that were based on works by artists in her circle. There\u2019s a jacket embroidered with a Jean Cocteau drawing of two faces forming a vase shape, and a dress printed with a Salvador Dal\u00ed lobster\u2014like the one on his famous lobster telephone\u2014once worn by Wallis Simpson.<\/p>\n

\"DenimPhotograph \u00a9 Emil Larsson. Courtesy V&A Museum<\/p>\n

Evening coat, designed by Elsa Schiaparelli and Jean Cocteau, 1937.<\/p>\n

Schiaparelli fell in with the Surrealist crowd in 1920, when she and her daughter relocated to Paris from New York after the break-up of her marriage. Needing to earn a living, she dabbled in fashion and achieved the equivalent of virality in 1927 with her trompe l\u2019oeil bow sweaters. Fueled by that commercial success, as well as her popular perfume, S, she grew her business, eventually opening a grand new maison in the mid-1930s. Dal\u00ed, who contributed a hot pink version of his famous lips sofa to the space, \u201cconsidered her premises at Place Vend\u00f4me to be the beating heart of Surrealist Paris,\u201d said McKever.<\/p>\n

\"ExhibitionCourtesy V&A Museum<\/p>\n

A few of the 100 fashion ensembles in the exhibit.<\/p>\n

Schiaparelli realized these theatrical new headquarters with Frank, one of her lesser-known collaborators from the design world. Though he is just briefly touched upon in the V&A exhibition (through a single vitrine featuring one of the ashtray stands he created with sculptor Alberto Giacometti), he designed all of her interiors over the years. He crafted everything from her four-room garret at Rue de la Paix, with its white walls, stark black furniture, and black patent leather curtains, to the 98-room couture salon with its high ceilings and delicate moldings. The duo played off each other, both working with unexpected materials combined with traditional proportions and lines. For example, Frank created the life-sized birdcage which still stands today in Schiaparelli\u2019s salons, as well as some of her modernist perfume bottles, one of which is on view in the exhibit.<\/p>\n

\"schiaparelliCourtesy V&A Museum<\/p>\n

A room in the exhibition with fur-covered walls is dedicated to Schiaparelli perfume bottles.<\/p>\n

Frank introduced Schiaparelli to the sculptor Alberto Giacometti, who designed uplighting for the salon, concealed in shell-like forms perched atop plaster columns. \u201cHe made the whole thing look ethereal,\u201d says London gallerist Didier Haspeslagh, who specializes in artist jewelry and loaned some Giacometti pieces to the show.<\/p>\n

In addition to lighting, Giacometti designed buttons for Schiaparelli\u2019s fashions, as well as pins and pendants in the form of creatures like birds, sphinxes, and horses. A pair of Giacometti\u2019s brooches, depicting angels, was immortalized by Pablo Picasso in a 1937 portrait of Surrealist artist Nusch \u00c9luard. That painting, borrowed for the show from Mus\u00e9e Picasso, \u201creally embodies the title of the exhibition, \u2018Fashion Becomes Art,\u2019\u201d said McKever.<\/p>\n

\"AbsenceCourtesy V&A \u00a9 GrandPalaisRmn (musee national Picasso, Paris) Adrien Didierjean<\/p>\n

Pablo Picasso\u2019s 1937 portrait of Surrealist artist Nusch \u00c9luard, featuring brooches Schiaparelli created with Giacometti.<\/p>\n

As Schiaparelli gets ready to mark its centenary next year, the V&A exhibition celebrates both the fashion house that has found relevance again and the importance of collaboration in that legacy. As Haspeslagh says, Schiaparelli spent her career creatively \u201cbouncing off anyone who was inspiring her.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"3 min read Above: Elsa Schiaparelli in her boutique at 21 Place Vend\u00f4me, Harper’s Bazaar, October 1935. Founded…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":856301,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,1329,244052,1331,393,4884,1381,257,225285,244051,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-856300","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-content-type-feature","10":"tag-contentid-d6be5861-ca0b-4cd9-b85a-15c1e2b1a65f","11":"tag-displaytype-standard-article","12":"tag-england","13":"tag-great-britain","14":"tag-locale-us","15":"tag-london","16":"tag-read_time-3","17":"tag-shorttitle-inside-the-vas-new-schiaparelli-exhibit","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116307438601182942","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=856300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856300\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/856301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=856300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=856300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=856300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}