Wearing the Surreal: Schiaparelli Between 20th century Art-Avantgarde and Contemporary Couture 

The relationship between art and fashion has long been the subject of critical debate, torn between notions of separation and synthesis. Karl Lagerfeld famously stated that “art is art, fashion is fashion,” positioning the two as fundamentally distinct disciplines. It is a neat statement: clean, quotable, and ultimately difficult to uphold. Within the realm of haute couture, garments transcend utility and enter the domain of conceptual and aesthetic expression becoming, for most, wearable art. Few fashion houses at this intersection have engaged as actively with avant-garde artistic circles as Schiaparelli. Elsa Schiaparelli translated key elements of early twentieth-century Paris’ Surrealism into her designs, establishing a house that is today, under the creative direction of Daniel Roseberry, experiencing an almost excessive resurge of attention. Striking designs defined by exaggerated proportions, fine materiality, and intricate mechanical detailinggenerate images that feel engineered as much for social media circulation as for the runway. With the SS26 showcase staged at the Centre Pompidou, Roseberry placed the collection within the symbolic architecture of a museum, directly engaging with the institutionscodes of legitimacy, conduct and cultural value. 

This article examines the roots of Schiaparelli in art-historical movements, its referenced design language, and its contemporary interaction with institutional art. 

Founded in 1927 by Elsa Schiaparelli, the house quickly distinguished itself within Parisian couture. Early on, Schiaparelli embraced experimentation, humour, and intellectual provocation within its designs. Elsa’s collaborations with leading avant-garde artists of the time embedded the brand within the artistic movement of Surrealism. Emerging in 1920s Paris under André Breton, Surrealism gathered artists such as Salvador Dalí, René Magritte, and Max Ernst in a collective effort to dismantle rational representation. Their work is defined by a distinctive visual style that combines highly detailed, often realistic imagery with illogical, dreamlike scenes – melting objects, fragmented bodies, or displaced everyday items, creating a sense of the uncanny. Elsa Schiaparelli’s collaborations with Salvador Dalí remain among the most iconic expressions of this exchange. The Telephone Powder Compact translated surrealist object-making into cosmetic design, while the Lobster Dress (1937) placed a Dalí illustration directly onto couture, questioning distinctions between canvas and cloth. Similarly, her Snuff perfume bottle, referencing René Magritte’s Ceci n’est pas une pipe, further played with ideas of representation and illusion. But this approach extended beyond the medium of garments: the interior of the Schiaparelli salon at 21 Place Vendôme, designed in collaboration with artist Alberto Giacometti and architect Jean-Michel Frank, positioned the house itself as a curated artistic environment. 

Despite its influence, the fashion brand closed in 1954, marking the end of an era that had defined a strong relationship between fashion and art. Subsequently, Schiaparelli remained dormant for decades until a significant turning point came in 2006. Diego Della Valle’s Tod’s Group acquired the Schiaparelli name and heritage, initiating a long-term revival strategy. The reopening of the historic salon at Place Vendôme in 2012 marked a symbolic return to its origins, followed by the house’s re-entry into the Haute Couture calendar in 2014. This reestablishment was further solidified in 2017, when Schiaparelli was granted official Haute Couture status. In 2019, the appointment of US-American Daniel Roseberry as artistic director opened a new chapter. Tasked with reimagining the fashion house, Roseberry inherited not only an archive, but a conceptual legacy that would shape his approach in the years to follow. 

Since taking over as artistic director, Daniel Roseberry has deeply tapped into and transformed Schiaparelli’s archive, maintaining the avantgarde roots of the brand while pushing them into contemporary relevance. As he notes, what resonates most is not simply Elsa‘s use of surrealism, but the way she “challenged the medium of fashion in itself”. This way of working shifts surrealism from symbol to method. As Roseberry notes, the intention was first to “re-establish the voice of the house and make it personal,” before returning to Elsa Schiaparelli’s work and build a process rooted in artistic heritage. Like the founder herself, known for her technical innovations, Roseberry is particularly interested in experimenting with new and unexpected fabrics and continually pushes the boundaries of what couture can, or should be.  

This approach proved to be highly successful with the Simon Longland, Director of Harrods Buying Fashion, naming Roseberry the guy who turned Schiaparelli into “more than just a brand, but a visual manifesto”. 

Said visual manifesto encompasses a dreamy play with proportions, materials and often exposed anatomical forms. Trompe-l’œiltechniques reappear not as surface illusion, but as structural manipulation, while accessories – oversized masks, surreal jewellery, hybrid objects – extend the logic of distortion. Pieces such as the sculpted Heart Dress, widely circulated across social media, or the gold-cast anatomical elements worn by Bella Hadid at Cannes Film Festival, transform the body into an object of display and dislocation. Just like Salvador Dali’s Cover for Vogue in 1939, today’s designs are theatrical, excessive, and feel highly aware of their own visibility.  These designs do not decorate the body but reconfigure it, echoing surrealism’s fascination with fragmentation and displacement. As noted by ELLE in contemporary coverage, Roseberry’s work maintains a “fine balance” between Elsa’s surrealist codes and a distinctly modern, sculptural language.

This idea of arts and fashion reaches a new level in the Spring/Summer 2026 collection, staged at the Centre Pompidou – one of Europe’s most important institutions for modern and contemporary art. More than a symbolic venue, the choice of location fundamentally reframed the show. Roseberry himself was inspired by the rise of museum-going as a cultural experience, aiming to create a collection that would feel less like entertainment and more like encountering real inspiration. The implication is significant. By placing couture within a museum context, Schiaparelli questions the distinction between exhibition and runway, between artwork and garmentand between a show and an cultural experience. The show was conceived not simply as a presentation of fashion, but as an immersive, curatorial experience, in media described as a space where fashion operates as “a museum of possibility”. 

What ultimately emerges from Roseberry’s Schiaparelli is a redefinition of couture’s role. By adopting the experience of visiting anexhibition and the logic of artistic production, the house positions fashion within a broader cultural discourse. Yet this positioning is not without complexity. To present couture as art risks neutralizing the disruptive potential that defined surrealism in the first place. What was once radical becomes aestheticized, absorbed into the highly controlled capitalist environment of luxury fashion. And still, Schiaparelli’s design strength lies precisely in this tension, between art and commerce, object and body, history and reinvention. In Roseberry’s hands, surrealism is neither revived nor replicated, but reconfigured as a contemporary method which’s output’s visibility equals relevance. Through viral runway moments, celebrity red-carpets, and an instinctive understanding of image culture, the house has managed to resonate with a visually trained generation and command an exceptional level of public attention.  

And still, the question lingers: does this make fashion art, or simply very good at performing as such? Perhaps the distinction matters less than Lagerfeld would have liked. In practice, Schiaparelli operates in the space where that boundary dissolves. 

By Anna Victoria Doliner

Sources:  

Christie’s. (n.d.). What is Surrealism? 
https://www.christies.com/en/stories/surrealism-art-guide-02437e9dc49040e48850b00523c9f813 

Schiaparelli. (n.d.). L’histoire de la maison. 
https://schiaparelli.com/en/pages/l-histoire-de-la-maison 

Stafford, J. (2023). Daniel Roseberry interview. System Magazine. 
https://system-magazine.com/issues/issue-19/daniel-roseberry-schiaparelli-interview 

Doric, K. (2025). Daniel Roseberry unveils Schiaparelli SS26 RTW collection. DesignScene. 
https://www.designscene.net/2025/10/schiaparelli-ss26.html 

Phelps, N. (2025). Schiaparelli Spring 2026 Ready-to-Wear. Vogue. 
https://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/spring-2026-ready-to-wear/schiaparelli 

ELLE. (Author name). (Year). Daniel Roseberry Schiaparelli profile. 
https://www.elle.com/uk/fashion/a69726793/daniel-roseberry-schiaparelli-profile/ 

Vogue. (2021). Bella Hadid’s Cannes look is straight off the couture runway. 
https://www.vogue.com/article/bella-hadids-cannes-look-is-straight-off-the-couture-runway