Old World, Vampy Glamour. Schiaprelli AW24 Couture

June 25, 2024 | Design & Culture by Ed

This haute couture week started with a regal twist as Daniel Roseberry took us back in time. “I had this dream of finding a forgotten couture collection in the basement of Elsa’s country house,” he said backstage at his Schiaparelli fashion show. This is a couture label that flourished in the 1920s and ’30s. Its contemporary creative director has never seemed hemmed in by that era, but this season he made his gaze more explicit. “I wanted people to feel the collection was referencing a different time… and there was something about the ’50s that felt so fresh and simple. You’ll find homages to those silhouettes.” The show was staged in a basement – the basement of the Hôtel Salomon de Rothschild, whose upper salons have long been used for couture shows. In the dark, chandelier-lit space Roseberry conjured something of the haute couture shows of old, with models emerging at a stately, almost reverential pace, and making eye contact with the audience. Maybe it felt stuffy and history-heavy at some moments, even archaic, but there’s an irresistible charm of that old world, vampy glamour. Who wouldn’t want to indulge in wearing the show-opening cape, with the broad shoulders of an eagle with silver lozenge embroidery arranged to look like gleaming feathered wings? Or a black party dress, with its tulle skirt in a permanent can-can kick flip exposing an underside lavishly embellished with pink rhinestones? Or spiral in some mirrored hall, covered in millefeuille circles that trimmed the arabesque hems of an hourglass dress? Couture is a dreamworld, and Roseberry has no shame about it.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Prêt-À-Porter. Schiaparelli AW24

March 3, 2024 | Design & Culture by Ed

Daniel Roseberry‘s Schiaparelli ready-to-wear used to read as an offshoot of the haute couture line. But the autumn-winter 2024 collection offered a new mindset. Cleaned from bold surreal ornaments, eye motifs or in-your-face Elsa Schiaparelli references, Roseberry offered his perspective on daily chic. There was strong tailoring with beautiful silhouettes and ties made to look like plaited hair, corsets worn over vest tops and outerwear with spectacular, hand-made buttons. “So what is Schiap ready-to-wear? It’s a wardrobe full of blazer variations, crisp slacks and separates, and dramatic evening wear – with both our founder’s beloved iconographies (the anatomy, the measuring tape, the keyhole) and my beloved Americanisms (fringe, buckles, and denim) making starring appearances and cameos throughout,” the designer summed up. While the collection seemed to lack direction, and in some moments reminded bits of Demna’s Balenciaga, Kim Jones’ Fendi and Pieter Mulier’s Alaïa, it was certainly refreshing to see more lightness at this detail-heavy brand.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Schiapar-alien. Schiaparelli SS24 Couture

January 23, 2024 | Design & Culture by Ed

Couture season has started, baby! Schiaparelli kicked of the haute week in Paris with musings on sci-fi and the future. The final result of Daniel Roseberry‘s plunge into all things Alien and Elsa Schiaparelli was, however, more about retro-tech with grand, surreal gestures. Huge funnel-like necklines disguised the face behind screens of lace; champagne-hued ballgowns with silk bows that jutted out near-endlessly appeared to defy gravity; and floor-length beaded fringes that moved energetically as if from Planet Glam all conjured astronomical flourishes of high-art-meets-high-fashion. Elsewhere, silver spine-like bijoux (a nod to Schiaparelli’s 1938 skeleton dress) that sprouted from the back of a black corset paired with a latex skirt and a polished parure, and a perfectly curved cream jacket offered all the alienistic edge a line of space-ready silhouettes could need. The mini-dress made out of discarded technology relics can be read as a comment on tech-waste, a problem that we face globally. But you can also perceive it as a new take on embellishments and embroideries. “Now, the technology I grew up with is so antiquated that it’s almost as difficult to source as certain vintage fabrics and embellishments,” said Roseberry in his show notes. Model Maggie Maurer – an IRL freshly-baked mother – carried a baby doll made from motherboards and microchips. That all might have felt quite too much for a Monday morning, but at Schiaparelli there seems no such thing as restraint.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Extremes. Schiaparelli SS24

September 30, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

When you design to provoke, you must also take yourself less seriously: that’s Daniel Roseberry’s ethos for spring-summer 2024. His latest Schiaparelli collection is all about extremes. Extreme chic and extreme humor. The starting point for the Texas-born designer was one of Elsa Schiaparelli’s first successes: a sweater knit with a trompe l’œil collar and bow. Thus his desire to “make the everyday come to more vivid, more surprising life” gave birth to white shirts, suits and smoking jackets – classic silhouettes reimagined with Schiaparelli spice. A simple-seeming ribbed dress bore illusion breasts, and shimmered in a metallic pewter knit. Another ensemble was a play on an emerging formula: a boxy blazer, low-rise trousers, and the flash of a boxer over the waistband. Roseberry served his interpretation in elevated fabrics, embellished with gold bijoux: a sandy short jacket over white boxers and cowboy-style denim. But the most delightful looks were those that unleashed Schiaparelli’s menagerie from the archives, where the most amusing of animal neighbors reside. The lobster, protagonist of Schiaparelli’s famous 1937 dinner dress, clung in ceramic from chain necklaces; so too did crabs and fish skeletons dangle over leather bodysuits and jersey sheaths. A halterneck dress, Roseberry’s signature look, featured the spoils of another creature: the contents of a woman’s bag, spilled over ecru cotton.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Surreal Lady. Schiaparelli AW23 Couture

July 4, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

“I wanted this season to feel much more free, spontaneous, painterly,” Schiaparelli‘s Daniel Roseberry said before the autumn-winter 2023 couture show. “The idea of the last collection was really to suck the air out of the room. It’s what happened. I think the idea was to really try to keep the focus on the collection and go deeper and deeper into the techniques we wanted to show.” The designer went into territory of his own this season, carving and draping sculptural, asymmetrical silhouettes out of black and white materials while experimenting with craftspeople to blur the boundaries between clothing, embroidery, jewelry and collages of textiles. The collection is not only surreal in its look, but also in its richness of textures and vibrant tactility. Roseberry took his conceptual cue sparked by the house of Schiaparelli’s long involvement with artists. It ranged into some exceptional freewheeling artisanal effects. Looking at Lucian Freud’s chaotic paint-dashed studio resulted in a multicolored ‘nude’ dress, made up of an irregular mosaic of paillettes sewn onto chiffon. Thinking about Schiaparelli’s classic gold embroidery led Roseberry to discover that a vibrant Yves Klein blue lies at the opposite end of the color spectrum. Hence the vivid blue that turned up, scrolled into a skating skirt, and continuing into spray-painted body-paint and landing elsewhere in coils of painted wooden jewelry. Roseberry made a smart move in detaching himself from the routine of reiterating too many of the trompe l’oeil body-part house codes he’s been working with since he came to Schiaparelli. Echoes of other couturiers signatures – like Jean Paul Gaultier corsets this season – continue to be a sort of acknowledgement of the haute couture world’s legacy and Roseberry’s great respect for it.