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Elsa Schiaparelli was born in 1890, in the Corsini palace in Rome.
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In 1911, she published a collection of overtly sensual poems, Arethusa
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She set off for London with one of her sister’s friends to help to look after her children.
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When she was attending a conference on theology by Count Wilhelm Wendt de Kerlor, she felt under the charm of this young theosophist. They married in 1914 and left London for New York in 1916, after spending several seasons in Nice.
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Their daughter Yvonne, nicknamed Gogo, was born in 1920 and soon after, resened her husband’s repeated absences, Elsa asked for a divorce.
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In 1922, she moved to Paris with her daughter because Europe seemed to be ahead in terms of the treatments that Gogo needed for her poliomyelitis.
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During the day, Elsa worked at an antique dealer’s shop.
In the evening, she frequented the famous restaurant, Le Bœuf sur le Toit One day, which attracted the Paris smart set and her circle of artist friends grew. -
One day, Elsa accompanied a friend to a fitting at Paul Poiret, the greatest couturier of the age.
She tried on a few designs while waiting, even though she couldn’t afford to buy.
Realising this Paul Poiret suggested that Elsa could borrow several designs. This experience of a couture house, luxury, quality, design, colors, materials, embroidery and shapes lit a spark in Elsa that would prove to be one of the turning points in her life. -
Her simple yet radical, ingenious idea was a hand-knit pullover with a black and white trompe-l’œil motif. This sweater was immediately deemed a “masterpiece” by Vogue and the United States made it a star product within a few months. The pullover with the trompe-l’œil bow becomes so famous that an American magazine publishes the pattern without mentioning the designer’s name.
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founded her company in her own apartment in 1927, the business really took off the following year when she set up ateliers, with Schiaparelli – * on the door plate (Schiaparelli - Pour le Sport) This blend of Haute-Couture and sportswear
* The collection of knitwear pieces (with swimsuits, beach pyjamas and accessories.)
* The motifs was more varied (abstract tortoises, skeletons, sailor tattoos, etc.)
* The colors, (playing on contrasts, black and white, black and bright shades). -
After the launch of her first fragrance “S” in 1928, she presented a collection of three perfumes –Soucis, Salut and Schiap –
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The knitwear collections are complemented by beach pyjamas, swimsuits, tweed sportswear ensembles, ski suits and evening dresses.
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Introduced a number of innovations.
-Jumpsuits with visible zips, -
skeleton dress = collaborations: Salvador Dali,
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First wrap dress in Haute Couture.
First evening jacket: a white jacket wrapped around the waist of a long black dress.
It starts a new style wearing evening gowns with jackets. -
New licences in the United States for shoes and coloured stockings.
Elsa writes her first article published in an American magazine. -
Elsa Schiaparelli files a patent for a one-piece swimsuit with an integrated bra. The invention of an integrated ‘built-in’ bra – called “falsies” –
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First evening jacket: a white jacket wrapped around the waist of a long black dress. It starts a new style wearing evening gowns with jackets.
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First collaboration with an artist, Elsa Triolet creates the “aspirin” porcelain necklace.
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collaborations: Salvador Dali,
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collaborations: Salvador Dali,
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collaborations: Salvador Dali,
the tear dress, -
collaborations: Salvador Dali,
with whom she created now-legendary pieces - suits with bureau-drawer pockets, Jean Cocteau,
whose drawings is on coats, evening wear and jewellery.
ankle boots with topstitching, men’s fragrance in the form of a pipe (in a nod to Magritte), gloves with red python nails, ankle boots fringed with monkey fur, a Rhodoid necklace with insects, and handbags with luminous decorations -
collaborations: Jean Cocteau,
whose drawings is on coats, evening wear and jewellery.
ankle boots with topstitching, men’s fragrance in the form of a pipe (in a nod to Magritte), gloves with red python nails, ankle boots fringed with monkey fur, a Rhodoid necklace with insects, and handbags with luminous decorations -
collaborations: Jean Cocteau, whose drawings is on coats, evening wear and jewellery.
ankle boots with topstitching, men’s fragrance in the form of a pipe (in a nod to Magritte), gloves with red python nails, ankle boots fringed with monkey fur, a Rhodoid necklace with insects, and handbags with luminous decorations -
Collaboration with the painter Jean Dunand
Creation of divided skirts (trompe-l’œil pleat) that cause a scandal in England. A long dress featuring a painted trompe-l’œil pleat.
First runway show of the entire collection at Saks in New York. -
n 1932, the Couture House, which had become Schiaparelli – Sportswear, (“Schiaparelli - Pour le Sport, Pour la Ville, Pour le Soir”) City and Evening Wear, spanned several floors and included eight ateliers accommodating over 400 employees.
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Elsa Schiaparelli opened a store and salons in London and an office in New York.
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first female fashion designer to be featured on the cover of the American magazine Time in 1934. From the outset, Elsa and her designs for women with a strong and independent personality attracted famous customers.
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in 1934 the Couture House took over the Hotel de Fontpertuis, 21 place Vendôme: five floors, 98 rooms, over 700 employees and a ground-floor boutique with a view of the Vendôme column.
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She alternated sportswear with restrained lines, “hard chic” suits and day dresses with unashamedly seductive evening dresses.
She took her inspiration from the male wardrobe to create the first "coat-shirt" in 1935. Each collection told a story, borrowing from the precious, ordinary, art, provocative, and the everyday life with other elements.
She was the first to give her collections a theme:
- the “typhoon” look,
- the “parachute” look,
- “Stop, Look & Listen”
- “Le Cirque” (circus) -
The launch of the perfume Shocking and the color “shocking pink”. The perfume, whose bottle designed by Léonor Fini represented a dressmaker dummy following the curves of Mae West, decorated with porcelain flowers and a velvet measuring tape, was an unprecedented success.
Elsa then had a chromatic vision: she invented shocking pink, a pure, vibrant, undiluted, intense and lively pigment. -
Though an artist in her own right, Elsa Schiaparelli also collaborated with fine artists such as Salvador Dali. Through their collaborations, surrealist art qualities came alive as women wore shoe hats, skeleton dresses and much more.
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collaborations: Jean Cocteau,
whose drawings is on coats, evening wear and jewellery.
ankle boots with topstitching, men’s fragrance in the form of a pipe (in a nod to Magritte), gloves with red python nails, ankle boots fringed with monkey fur, a Rhodoid necklace with insects, and handbags with luminous decorations -
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interrupted by the Second World War. Until the summer of 1940, Elsa fought to keep her Couture House in business in order to maintain as many jobs as possible and even launched a perfume, Sleeping.
In view of the air raids, she created practical and comfortable clothing: zippered jumpsuits with maxi pockets intended to hold the equivalent of a handbag, a coat with an integrated bag, transformable dresses, etc. -
Elsa left Paris and gave a series of conferences across the United States on the theme of “Clothes and the Woman”.
Her audience totaled 36,000 for one of them.
In Dallas, she was the first European to receive the Neiman Marcus award for services to fashion. -
-Despite the war and MoMA’s offer to appoint her as director of a fashion design department, she left for Paris again. Elsa sets off with 13,000 vitamin capsules to help Free France, she put her Couture House into the hands of her right-hand man from May 1941 to July 1945.
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When France was liberated, Elsa returned there immediately, took over the designing and presented a collection as early as September 1945. She took part in the travelling exhibition Théâtre de la Mode across the United States.
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Hubert de Givenchy was hired as the creative director of the Schiaparelli boutique.
A perfume factory was built in the suburbs of Paris to ensure the sustained activity of the existing perfumes, complemented by the launches of Roy Soleil, Zut and Succès Fou over the following years. -
for the women who were travelling more and more, Elsa caused a sensation with the Constellation wardrobe: all under 12 lbs
six dresses,
one reversible coat,
three folding hats. -
Despite the strike of part of her Haute-Couture ateliers.
- The pieces were not finished. You could still see pins, fabric swatches and no buttonholes.
However, the youthful style, evident daring and the evening dress with a visible bra led the New York Times to describe the collection as “Striking”. Newsweek devoted its front page to Elsa. -
Elsa noted that the world of Haute-Couture had changed.
She decided to close her Couture House in 1954 to devote herself to her autobiography Shocking Life. -
She died in her sleep in 1973
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Reopening of the Couture House at Hôtel de Fontpertuis, 21 place Vendôme, in the very place where Elsa left it.
In May, inauguration of the "Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations" exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. -
tribute to Elsa in a unique Haute Couture collection designed by Monsieur Christian Lacroix.
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the first Haute Couture runway show since 1954, is presented during Paris Haute Couture week.
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Bertrand Guyon is appointed design director in charge of Haute Couture and Prêt-à-Couture collections.
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The Salons-Boutique opens within the Couture House, 21 place Vendôme.
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Schiaparelli is awarded with the official Haute Couture label by the French Ministry of Industry and the French Couture Federation.
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At the 32nd Hyères International Fashion and Photography Festival, Schiaparelli is invited to present an exhibition at the Villa Noailles’ swimming-pool while Bertrand Guyon is president of the fashion jury.
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