SCHIAPARELLI HAUTE COUTURE FALL WINTER 2024

THE PHOENIX “Cézanne started with all the tricks and then he broke the whole thing down and built the real thing. It was hell to do.” — Ernest Hemingway By March of 1932, Elsa Schiaparelli’s reputation was already made: a shape-shifting entrepreneur, she blurred the lines between fashion and art and life and art. A glorious enigma, she was (depending on who you asked) elusive or scandalous, shocking for her freedom, her lack of inhibition, and her apparent inability to care about convention. As her close friend Salvador Dalí said of her, “No one knows how to say Schiaparelli, but everyone knows what it means.” Nine years later, for the opening gala of the Ambassadeurs restaurant in Paris, Schiaparelli wore a gown painted by Dunand, with a coq-feathered stole smartly wrapped around her shoulders. It was an homage to the great ballerina Anna Pavlova, who had died that same year, and for whom, with her short black hair and sharp features, Schiaparelli was often mistaken. But if Pavlova was always associated with her iconic performance in “The Dying Swan,” then Schiaparelli was a phoenix, a magical creature whose power lay in her ceaseless ability to reinvent—not only herself, but fashion, too. The context of this collection, which honors Elsa’s singular gift for rebirth, is second only to its form. Each piece is clear in its silhouette and its technique: you can see every look’s origins, how each moved from sketch to study to fabric. As well, each look here is meant to elici