Schiaparelli: a year of Daniel Roseberry
Schiaparelli celebrates Daniel Roseberry's first anniversary at the helm of the maison with a visual project, 'The Next Chapter'"What is art like? What is identity? How do we dress for the end of the world? "
Complex questions, which exemplify what are the most imaginative doubts of a contemporaneity that does not just question the knowledge. Questions that only the artist can answer, in his ability to project himself into metaphysical dimensions of creativity and imagination. "I want to offer my answers to these questions and a fantasy - a dream - that is relevant and necessary for today." So Daniel Roseberry commented on his arrival at the maison Schiaparelli in April 2019: his are current words and that contain a promise - open the doors of vision and let the fantastic overflow into the concrete.
A year of work separates Roseberry from its first collection, from the beginning of this new chapter of Schiaparelli. New chapter of unpublished episodes, in which the narrator changes, but the story remains the same, written in a single book - to understand the following pages, we must remember those already read. The designer's mission is to update the heritage of Elsa Schiaparelli: do not modify it, do not adapt it to modern needs, but make it evolve following a natural process, transplanting the same principles into a different terrain. A regenerating action that Roseberry carries out based on the pillar of Schiaparelli aesthetics: women as a moving work of art.
"Designing clothes, let it be said in passing, is not a profession but an art. A dress does not remain attached to the wall like a painting, nor does it lead to the long intact and preserved existence of a book " - the declaration of Elsa Schiaparelli to the reporter François Baudot, starting point for Roseberry and her interpretation of couture. For the autumn winter 2020 collection, a drawing board is placed in the center of the catwalk, the creative director sits, with headphones on his ears, and begins to draw. Almost like a projection of her mental imagery, the models parade, in a dreamlike atmosphere pervaded with wonder which never appears entirely real. Navy blue, tangerine, khaki green, black and white. Little, very little rose - there is an entire palette to draw from, why limit yourself to a single nuance? Since this first collection, Roseberry's unique imprint is perceived, her taste for fabric as a ductile material with which to sculpt the female body. The clothes are rich and structured but fluid, follow and accompany the movement, rippling and creating plays of light. Elsa is in a net-covered dress covered in crystals, in a crop top that is a nest of ladybugs - rebels, who are not in their place, goes wandering on the chest and shoulders - and in the flowers, in prints rich in multicolored buds , a precious symbol for the Schiaparelli maison, emblem of the surrealist and imaginative perception that the couturière had of the surrounding world.
"It would have been wonderful to have your face covered with flowers like a lovely garden! And if she had managed to get flowers all over her face, she would have been unique in the world. Nasturtiums, daisies, bells all in full bloom! With some difficulty he obtained the seeds from the gardener and planted them in his throat, in his ears, in his mouth. With the warmth of his body, he thought, they would blossom faster than on the ground out there. [..] He nearly choked. " - he talks about himself in the third person Elsa Schiaparelli in his autobiography Shocking Life (1954), an image so powerful that it even inspires Salvador Dalì and his work Printemps Nécrophilique.
The relationship with Dalì and the link with art inspire Daniel Roseberry for the Haute Couture spring summer 2020 collection. The body is the white canvas on which to condense a principle of dualism, of opposite images but at the same time mirroring day and night, seduction and modesty, art and fashion.
"I came to imagine two characters, a Surrealist and a Seductress. And it is these two figures - and the imaginary space that separates them - that I celebrate in this collection. For the feminine, diurnal character, I created large costumes in light draped wool that distil nonchalance. Available in a palette of chocolate, caramel, cream, navy, black. And for the seductress night owl, sparkling dresses in hyper saturated silk and satin faille, in black, white and royal blue. "A dualism sublimated by tactility, from the one-sided dimension of the senses that perceive, without asking too much, the ripples of dry wool, the softness, like butter, of the worked leather, from a physicality made a masterpiece by the jewel. Unruly jewelry, who do not dwell on the positions of order, wandering on the face, arms, collarbones and eyelashes. Eyes, hands, teeth and the skeleton that protrudes from the body, goes beyond the fabric and imposes itself as a decoration, a tribute to the Skeleton Dress from 1938, born from a sketch donated to Elsa da Dalì.
In a year of art, fashion and beauty, Daniel Roseberry it has detached itself from the traditional heritage of Schiaparelli - the pink color, the excess to the bitter end - but instead has rediscovered its purest essence starting from the roots, from the first Parisian boutique, Pour le Sport, opened in 1927 on Rue de la Paix, where a functional and practical clothing it was inserted in a maritime context, a design of ropes and sails from which scarves and sweaters hung. We don't wear a picture because a picture belongs to everyone, it is a universal image that belongs to the world, and this makes it unattainable. We do not wear a painting because it is not designed for the body, it is uncomfortable, angular, putting it in involves tearing the canvas. We wear a suit because it expresses something of our identity, completes and amplifies it in a totally personal way. It was born to adapt to the body, without having no support, and for this reason, Roseberry's fashion transposes the extraordinary into the ordinary, and lets the imagination wander in everyday life to make it magnificent.
What will we wear at the end of the world? Considering that fashion is energy, it is beauty, it is life, Roseberry's answer, and that of Elsa, is perhaps another question: does it really matter?
