Elsa Schiaparelli Shocking - Les mondes surréalistes d'Elsa Schiaparelli

Like her rival Gabrielle Chanel, fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli (1890-1973) was a key figure in interwar Parisian fashion. Schiaparelli created her first collection of sweaters in January 1927, following the example of her mentor, Paul Poiret. His knitted jumpers, decorated with black and white trompe l’oeil patterns, were an immediate success in France and the United States. In 1935, the move of the Schiaparelli house to n°21 Place Vendôme, decorated by Jean-Michel Frank, accompanied the development of collections “for sport, for the city, for the evening”.

In addition to texts illustrated with period photographs, drawings and documents published in Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue, this book presents a selection of masterpieces from the Musée des Arts Décoratifs collection photographed by the artist Valérie Belin and commented on in detail. A catalogue raisonné reproduces the 120 garments and accessories in the Schiaparelli collection, as well as a selection of his drawings from the collections of 1933 to 1953, among the 6,200 held by the museum.