Schiap

Gabrielle Chanel and Elsa Schiaparelli both had enormous influence in all the spheres in which they orbited, and both left a permanent mark on the taste of our time. Elsa was born in Italy (Rome) in 1890. Elsa, nicknamed Schiap, was truly grand; her mother was a Neapolitan aristocrat, her father a renowned scholar and bibliophile. From childhood, Schiaparelli browsed through the priceless illuminated manuscripts curated by her father, developing a lifetime passion for the makers of fine art, many of whose talents she employed in the magnificent fashion house she created at an early age.


When got married when she was only 18-year-old, she gave birth to a baby and afterwards she divorced him, after a turbulent marriage.

“Women dress alike all over the world: they dress to be annoying to other women”

Schiap started her real career in New York, and, during the Jazz Age, she opened a small shop near the Place Vendome where she sold her first collection devoted to sportswear, then all the rage for liberated women.

She was in Place Vendome on this photo.

Inspired by the geometrical vocabulary of art deco and cubism, taking advantage of the flexibility of new synthetic fibers, and inspired by the paintings of Picasso, Braque, and Mondrian, Schiap created a sensation.

This is a famous sweater from 1927, she created this black sweater with a white bow at the neck and it was shown in the French Vogue. I have never seen before this. I thought this is Sonia Rykiel's creation. Isn't it cute?



In 1937 she created the back-to-front suit, and it was copied by Karl Lagerfeld in 1986.

Schiap's career didn't really survive World War II, since a shattered public was no longer in tune with the eccentricities of the Jazz Age.
In 1954 and Schiaparelli left her work and wrote her autobiography entitled “My Shocking Life”.



She died in 1973. Her fashion house was re-opened in 1977 and you can still buy things from (click) it.

I think she was a great designer, always added some humour in her designs.