Elsa Schiaparelli

Remember that banana duct-taped to a wall that sold for $120K? Well this designer put a lobster between a woman’s legs. And unlike the banana, it actually meant something.

Born into Roman aristocracy in 1890, Elsa Schiaparelli wasn’t supposed to work.

She was supposed to marry and behave.

Instead, she wrote poetry that scandalized her family.

Eloped with a self-proclaimed psychic after one lecture.

Moved to New York, had a daughter, got abandoned.

Raised a polio-stricken child solo while bouncing between odd jobs.

She didn’t go to design school. She didn’t apprentice under a couturier. She had no technical training.

What she did have was imagination. And nothing to lose.

“If I have become what I am,” she said, “I owe it to two distinct things: poverty and Paris.”

In 1927, she launched a line of sweaters with trompe-l’œil motifs.

A black-and-white pullover that faked a bow around the collar.

Vogue called it an artistic masterpiece.

Buyers flooded in.

Her new label, Schiaparelli Pour le Sport, was born.

From there, she scaled fast.

By the early '30s, she was producing 10,000 garments a year.

In 1935, she moved her operations into a 98-room mansion at 21 Place Vendôme.

No one had seen anything like her.

She made gloves with snakeskin fingernails.

Hats shaped like shoes.

Necklaces of crawling insects.

And dresses with mirror panels placed at the bust, to confront the male gaze with its own reflection.

She partnered with Jean Cocteau. And Salvador Dalí.

Together, they created the Lobster Dress, famously worn by Wallis Simpson.

The Skeleton Dress, padded with trapunto quilting to reveal a woman’s bones.

And the Tears Dress, printed to look like torn flesh.

She invented the wrap dress, pioneered the visible zipper, and created the first fashion house to license sunglasses and lingerie.

She also built the first concept of a capsule wardrobe: six dresses, one hat, all under 6kg.

At the peak of her power, she rivaled Chanel, who famously dismissed her as “that Italian artist who makes clothes.”

TIME magazine didn’t agree.

In 1934, they put her on the cover.

The first female designer ever featured.

Then came the war.

She moved to New York. Volunteered as a nurse. Raised money for Free France. Sent 13,000 vitamin capsules to the resistance.

After the war, she tried to relaunch.

But the world had changed and Dior’s New Look eclipsed her avant-garde aesthetic.

She closed her couture house in 1954.

She died in 1973 at age 83.

But that’s not where the story ends.

In 2007, Italian businessman Diego Della Valle acquired the brand.

It re-opened at 21 Place Vendôme.

In 2019, Daniel Roseberry took over as creative director.

And suddenly, Schiaparelli was everywhere again.

Lady Gaga wore Schiaparelli to sing at the Biden inauguration, complete with a gilded dove on her chest.

Bella Hadid, Beyoncé, Cardi B, Doja Cat, Zendaya, Kim Kardashian.

Each has worn surrealist couture from the revived maison.