Schiaparelli Brought Animal Prints and Motifs to Haute Couture Week
Luxury brand, Schiaparelli, has always been known for their avant-garde and surrealist designs. Ever since their inception its founder, Elsa Schiaparelli, worked with visual artists to create garments and surrealist collections. Today, the brand is known for their wearable art garments and their willingness to push fashion standards. Schiaparelli presented their show to a full audience wearing Schiaparelli couture. Celebrities such as musician Doja Cat who attended the show in a head-to-toe red ensemble covered in 30,000 Swarovski crystals. Additionally, Kylie Jenner wore a black velvet with a realistic lion head on her shoulder directly from the spring 23 show.
Courtesy of Fashionista
For this Haute Couture Week show, their creative director Daniel Roseberry wanted to portray his own interpretation of Dante’s Inferno with realistic fake taxidermy animals that caused a lot of controversy. While creating the collection, he stated to Vogue, “The animals are one of the four literal references that I took from Dante’s Inferno. In the first cycle of Dante’s journey, he faces terrors. He confronts a lion, a leopard, and a she-wolf. They each represent different things,” he said, “But the lion and the animals are there as a photorealistic approaching of surrealism and trompe l’oeil in a different way. It’s the agony of wanting to surprise. I just want it to be powerful in a different way every time.”
Courtesy of Teen Vogue
These three animals represent different things with the lion representing pride, leopard representing lust and the she-wolf representing avarice. However, these animals were too photorealistic for people. Many people were repulsed by the idea that live (or at the very least realistic) animals were being put on display for the fashion world. Many thought that it glorified activities related to animal cruelty or poaching. Regardless, the use of fur (whether fake or not) in the fashion industry is becoming a growing controversial conversation for people to have and this show sparked the conversation up again.
Courtesy of Fashionista
The show also featured other signature Schiaparelli staples such as draped and hourglass silhouettes. The show had several garments that were in an exaggerated hourglass shape with an oversized fit. This was mostly done with long coats or corset tops. The show had many dresses that had sculptural art pieces attached to them that made the models look like they had art pieces growing from the skirt of their dress. In true Schiaparelli fashion, the garments of the show were donned in regal colors such as creams, blacks, greens, etc. Roseberry used a lot of textures and fabrics in this show to show the different drapes and details of each garment.
Courtesy of The Fashion Bomb
Schiaparelli always does couture the right way with their signature style. They allow themselves to get creative and take risks with head turning and memorable artistic garments. Despite the controversies of the show, it has gotten people to talk about the brand even more. See all of the looks here.
Here are the best looks from the show:
