Schiaparelli’s surrealist-chic sweet spot

By

Godfrey Deeny

Published
Oct 4, 2021

If at first you don’t succeed, try and try again. Which is what’s happened at Schiaparelli, where designer Daniel Roseberry has hit a sweet spot between polished, perverse and punchy.

The house has been through several designers and CEOs since Italian luxury entrepreneur Diego della Valle bought control of the storied marque a decade and half ago. Now, under Roseberry it’s grown to become an absolutely must-see collection again in Paris.
 
No runway show this season but a video and presentation inside its gilded third floor showroom and lounge at 21 Place Vendome, looking onto the Ritz Hotel.

“People can get lots of very good fashion in many houses. What I believe they look for in Schiaparelli is that sense of twisted luxury,” explained Daniel Roseberry, as he showed guests his Spring/ Summer 2022 collection from the house.
 
“When I make a blazer with nipple buttons everyone goes for that; and not the blazer with classic buttons. That’s just the way it is,” chuckled the American designer, behind a black mask.

Guests were greeted in the first of a series of salons by a fantastic series of accessories – from diabolic golden finger caps to silver minaudieres with evil eyes made of crystal eyebrows and pearl eye lashes; to clutches with golden ear clasps – all in gold, silver and pearls. While his cut out one-third-of-a-face pendants – nose, one eye and a half a forehead with crystal model – were something else.
 
The dashing darkness continues in ready-to-wear where snug, saddle-stitched black wool suits or a micro patent leather blazers were finished with nose clasps and ear buckles. One could not help noticing the black-and-white target leather boobs on a leather puffer. Another beautiful blazer had one lapel trimmed with a golden Schiaparelli tape measure. Several of the 20 Stockmann models even wore Elsa Schiaparelli’s interpretation of an upturned doge hat.

Just like the founder who dressed everyone from Mae West and Zsa Zsa Gabor to Wallis Simpson and Daisy Fellowes, Roseberry has attired contemporary icons like Lady Gaga, Michelle Obama and Beyoncé.
 
One can only imagine the civil war that will erupt between celebrity stylists as they fight to be the first to get their hands on two remarkable new silver sequined jackets emblazoned with bullion facial features – supreme statements of surrealist chic. 
 
A noted multi-task man, Roseberry even shot the 4.20 look-book video. Blessed with truly fertile imagination, Daniel however prefers a lower-key existence than Elsa. Not for him the clubs of Ibiza and Mykonos favored by so many designers. He spent one week this summer on a remote Swedish island by himself. 
 
“Being in a log cabin without running water was actually pretty refreshing for the mind,” he mused.

Roseberry has also injected dashes of humor, like the marvelous white dressing gown embroidered in black eyes and trimmed with tassels and the logo Schiaparelli Hotel.
 
“That was inspired by a photo in a dressing gown of Marlene Dietrich, a great friend of Schiaparelli,” explained the designer. Who cautioned that there’s no plans to build a Schiaparelli Hotel.
 
However, the brand will open its first foreign store, a new shop within the world’s most prestigious department store, Bergdorf Goodman on Fifth Avenue. 
 
That will take place on October 12, as della Valle’s long and patient wait to restore Schiaparelli to pinnacle of the fashion hierarchy reaches a new stage.