Monday, August 3, 2009

Elsa Schiaparelli














(...all images from here...)

Beautiful, playful and inventive avant-garde fashion created by the formidable talent of Elsa Schiaparelli.

The failure of her business meant that Schiaparelli's name is not as well remembered as that of her great rival Chanel. But in 1934, Time placed Chanel in the second division of fashion, whereas Schiaparelli was one of "a handful of houses now at or near the peak of their power as arbiters of the ultra-modern haute couture....Madder and more original than most of her contemporaries, Mme Schiaparelli is the one to whom the word "genius" is applied most often". At the same time Time recognised that Chanel had assembled a fortune of some US$15m despite being "not at present the most dominant influence in fashion", whereas Schiaparelli relied on inspiration rather than craftsmanship and "it was not long before every little dress factory in Manhattan had copied them and from New York's 3rd Avenue to San Francisco's Howard Street millions of shop girls who had never heard of Schiaparelli were proudly wearing her models".

...wiki...
...2003 exhibiton at the Philadelphia Museum of Art...
...more info on Candida Martinelli's Italophile Site...
...What Happened to the Provocative Elsa Schiaparelli? Slate Magazine...

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