SCHIAPARELLI: AW26
Daniel Roseberry called his AW26 Schiaparelli collection The Sphinx, a title that nodded to the house’s enduring fascination with enigma and contradiction. In his show notes, he also pointed to the imminent opening of the V&A’s Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art exhibition (opening March 28), a retrospective of Elsa Schiaparelli that explores how she questioned fashion as a medium – what a dress is supposed to be, and what it might become.
That tension ran through the collection. Staged on an elevated runway lined with blazing stage lights, the clothes oscillated between what a garment should be and what it can be, before firmly settling into a happy medium, balancing both on equally weighty ends of a scale.
Here, slouchy suiting was styled with shirts whose razor-sharp collars were popped high, and in the details – the devil was very much there. Bold Schiaparelli gold buttons ran down a blouse shaped like a head, then a bust, finishing in tiny feet. A silky jersey second-skin gown featured a literal keyhole cut-out, while sculpted silhouettes pushed anatomy into focus with jutted hips and semi-pointed breasts.
Elsewhere, cable knit jumpers were spliced apart and reassembled with nude mesh panels in between, giving a cut-and-paste lightness to something traditionally heavy. As dresses and suits, liquid black and brown satin rippled like an abyss. A salt-and-pepper faux fur coat came with matching trompe-l’oeil straight-leg jeans – you had to look twice to clock the difference.
There were gold pleats, dégradé rhinestones, statuesque bodices and a simple body-con turtleneck dress printed with the full figure of a male Greek statue. Alex Consani appeared in a barely-there sculpted bra built into nude mesh that coiled around the neck in bright yellow before dropping into an intricate sequin-tasselled skirt. A dark brown tailcoat trimmed with black ostrich feathers followed.
It ended with sparkle – sequinned gowns, tassel-like paillettes and glossy pleated dresses catching every flash of light as they moved down the runway. This was Schiaparelli glamour turned all the way up.
