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Shocking The Art and Fashion of Elsa Schiaparelli

Name: Shocking The Art and Fashion of Elsa Schiaparelli
Author: Dilys E. Blum
ISBN: 9780876331729

by Dilys E. Blum

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Overview

Elsa Schiaparelli (1890-1973) was the premier style arbiter of the 1930s - a favorite designer of women who made the best-dressed list, of female sports heroes, and of film and theater actresses. This book is the first comprehensive look at the work of this startling and innovative Paris fashion designer.

Shocking! explores the Italian-born designer's career from its modernist beginnings in the 1920s and its connections with Surrealism to the upheavals caused by war, the business struggles in the years that followed, and the closing of her salon in 1954.

With over three hundred reproductions of Schiaparelli clothing and accessories, this book includes the extensive group of objects given by the designer herself to the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1969 as well as contemporary photographs documenting Schiaparelli's salons, homes, and designs: patent office drawings; fashion sketches; works by the period's leading fashion photographers such as Horst and Cecil Beaton; works of art that complemented, influenced, or were influenced by her designs; and stills from many of the American, British, and French films and plays with which she was associated.

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Editorials

The New York Times

In the lavishly illustrated Shocking! The Art and Fashion of Elsa Schiaparelli, Dilys E. Blum, the curator of costume and textiles at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, persuasively argues that Schiaparelli was an artist no less than a designer -- and not only because of her collaborations with Dalí, Cocteau and Man Ray. Her Spanish rival, Balenciaga, considered Schiaparelli ''the only real artist in the couture.'' — David Kaufman

Library Journal

Innovative, daring, and even shocking, Italian-born Paris designer Elsa Schiaparelli (1890-1973) was the preferred fashion designer to the stars of ballet, theater, opera, royalty, high society, female sports heroes, and everyday modern women from 1927 until 1954. She pushed the envelope of acceptable women's fashion, casual wear, and accessories while creating an international following for her signature trompe l'oeil bow-knot sweaters, culottes, padded shoulders, and exposed plastic zippers. In brief essays, Blum (curator of costumes and textiles, Philadelphia Museum of Art) chronicles the design career of this remarkable woman. Organized chronologically as well as thematically, the book serves as the catalog of an exhibition of Schiaparelli's creations showing at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through January 4, 2004. The detailed illustrations and drawings (more than 300 in color and black-and-white) highlight the dynamic range of her creations, from the lawn tennis skirt of Lili de Alvarez to the surrealist costumes photographed by Man Ray and Cecil Beaton, among others. Also featured is a complete listing of the films and theatrical productions Schiaparelli costumed. A welcome addition to collections focusing on design, decorative arts, and fashion.-Stephen Allan Patrick, East Tennessee State Univ. Libs., Johnson City Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.