admin Normal, real fashion is the subject du jour at the spring shows, but not chez Schiaparelli. Having grabbed the world’s attention with spectacular red carpet moments, Daniel Roseberry is now building the house’s ready-to-wear identity, and he’s embracing the “madness of Elsa’s approach.”
The show-opening zip-front coat dress, plain save for the measuring tape embroidery down one side of the neckline, belied the eccentricity that followed. It took many forms, from the spilled nail polish and leather cigarette embroideries on the tailoring to the three-dimensional lobster placed suggestively on the front of an ivory skirt.
A Salvador Dalí-painted lobster famously featured on a lawn dress by Elsa Schiaparelli worn by the Duchess of Windsor; its sheer material and erotic suggestiveness scandalized 1930s England, which had been primed by her paramour’s abdication of the throne. Roseberry swore not to touch the lobster in his early days at Schiaparelli, thinking it was too obvious a reference to indulge. But four years on, having lived through the mini conflagration stirred up by the animal heads at his January couture show, he said he’s down for more fun, hence the giant lobster and crab necklaces here and the enormous gold cuff bracelets that took their cues from Brancusi shapes.
Shalom Harlow and Amber Valletta walked the show, and Guido Palau and Pat McGrath were on hair and makeup duty—the A-team, who have decades of experience between them. Backstage Roseberry called the collection an “ode to youth,” but these were dressed-up clothes, not so much young as they were linked back to his Americanness. He designed high-top sneakers with the molded gold toes he’s used on more formal shoes, and showed dark-rinse wide-leg jeans slung low over y-front briefs, with only a pinstripe blazer to accompany them on top.
Perhaps the greatest indication that Schiaparelli has moved beyond the realm of haute couture and into the real world is the upcoming launch of an eyewear line. But trust us, these are not your basic shades.
