HELLO, DALÍ: “Incredible” was how Stephen Jones described “Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art” at the Victoria & Albert Museum, the first U.K. show dedicated to designer Elsa Schiaparelli and her legacy.
Jones followed the Surrealist Black Tie dress code to the letter, donning a black beret with glossy caviar beads, and a dark jacket adorned with bejeweled Salvador Dalí brooches. “I had no idea the V&A even owned so many Schiaparelli pieces,” he added.
The exhibition, which opens to the public on Saturday, was seven years in the making, with V&A eager to show off the rare Schiaparelli treasures in its vault.
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The show includes a wedding gown and a black “skeleton dress,” inspired by Schiaparelli’s conversations with her longtime pal, Dalí, who loved the idea of putting bones on the outside of a dress. Dalí’s sketches of three female skeletons striking fashion poses accompany the arresting dress.
Delphine Bellini, Schiaparelli’s chief executive officer, said the aim was to bring Elsa Schiaparelli and her radical designs “back to life, and popular once again.” She said the show reveals the different sides of Schiaparelli, “who was a fashion designer, artist, mother and grandmother. She was also a woman who wondered: ‘What if fashion could be something else?'”
Guests included Schiaparelli clients, patrons and trustees of the museum, as well as the house of Schiaparelli’s owner Diego Della Valle and creative director Daniel Roseberry, whose own designs are juxtaposed with those of the founder.
The late designer’s granddaughter, actress Marisa Berenson, said the show was very emotional for her.
“When I walk in I can feel my grandmother looking at me. I can hear her voice. It’s also a very personal show. I lent a few things — pictures and personal photographs — and I feel like I’m reliving my youth with her. She’s there looking down on me,” Berenson said.
She described the exhibition as “striking. It’s so modern and light, but has this mystery and depth of conversation between Daniel and ‘Schiap.’ In her day she was very osé and avant-garde, but now when you see the clothes they seem incredibly modern and wearable. And then you see Daniel’s creativity, too,” said Berenson, who was wearing a black couture design by Roseberry.
Other guests, including Chase Infiniti, Calvin Harris, Elizabeth Debicki, Daisy Edgar-Jones, Regina King, Naomi Ackie and Gabbriette, gathered at the museum for cocktails and a tour of the show, with dinner served at long tables illuminated by fluorescent lights in the V&A’s Raphael Court.
Tables were laid with sculptural yellow gold place settings that resembled the house’s Surrealist statement jewelry. There were salt cellars in the shape of a cupped hand and napkin rings that looked like pierced noses.
Each place was set with a brooch — a small gold hand with red-painted fingernails, beckoning guests into the alternative world of Schiaparelli.