Elsa Schiaparelli~Surrealism
Sources from google and links http://www.biography.com/people/elsa-schiaparelli-21075509 http://www.vogue.co.uk/spy/celebrity-photos/2012/4/18/elsa-schiaparelli-style-file
Elsa Schiaparelli was born in Rome in 1890. Born into a very wealthy and successful driven family, Elsa from a young age, seemed to be driven to upset her aristocratic mother and scholarly father. After high school she when to uni and studied philology. She wrote a book of poems deemed so sensual by her parents that they directed her to a convent. To expedite her release from the convent, Schiaparelli went on a hunger strike; once released, she dashed off to London for a job as a nanny.
In London, Schiaparelli met and eventually married her former teacher, Count William de Wendt de Kerlor, who was a theosophist. The couple soon relocated to New York. It was on the liner taking them to New York, Elsa formed a friendship with Gabrielle Picabia, the wife of a Dada painter. This encounter would introduce Elsa into the circle of the avant-garde artists of the time:Man (RayMarcel DuchampEdward Steichen). William and Elsa had a had a daughter and she worked part-time in a boutique specializing in French fashions.
After her marriage failed, Schiaparelli returned to Paris, where she continued her work in the fashion industry. She soon began designing clothes of her own, and in 1927, opened her own business.
The 1930s marked her most famous collaborations: Salvador Dali, with whom she created now-legendary pieces (suits with bureau-drawer pockets, a shoe-hat, a lobster-printed dress, a skeleton dress, the tear dress, Le Roy soleil perfume bottle, etc.), and Jean Cocteau, whose drawings featured on coats, evening ensembles and jewellery. The surrealist and artistic spirit took hold of leather ankle boots with toes represented by topstitching, along with the men’s fragrance bottle in the shape of a pipe (in a nod to Magritte), gloves with red python nails, ankle boots fringed with long monkey fur, a Rhodoid necklace incrusted with insects, and handbags with luminous (battery-powered) decorations.
influencing styles to this day still
Le Roy perfume bottle
Bureau-drawer pocket
Skeleton dress
A shoe hat and also notice the lips
As envisioned by Schiaparelli, lips could have their mischievous and erotic aspects. The lips of Surrealism give no sign of elitism.
Schiaparelli also used the eye to bring clothing's what Surrealist-inflected fashion might be.
Salvador Dali influence
clocks
Salvador Dali Jewellery
Schiaparelli also designed clothes for film and the theater. Her work appeared in more than 30 movies over the course of her career, most notably in Every Day's a Holiday, starring Mae West, Moulin Rouge and Zsa Zsa Gabor.
Schiaparelli discontinued her couture business in 1951 and closed her design house three years later, but continued to work in fashion, designing accessories and, later, wigs. In 1954, she released an autobiography, Shocking Life.
Schiaparelli died on November 13, 1973, in Paris, France. In the decades since her death, Schiaparelli has continued to be regarded as a giant in the fashion world. In 2012, New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art featured her work,
The other day I was in the hairdressers I was reading a Red Fashion magazine... One of the featured articles was Elsa Schiaparelli who was included in the Fashion Favourites section.
What a women and influence on the Fashion world of yesterday and today.I know I will look at her working life again and reference her further down the line...
photo of article
Found this in Ella magazine from 2009
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