Born in Rome in 1890, Elsa Schiaparelli was 32 when fate brought her to Paris and offered a series of fortuitous encounters. Francis Picabia, Tristan Tzara, Man Ray, the dadaists and the surrealists all had great influence on her development as a fashion designer, endowed as she was with an innate exuberance in the language of form. With Schiaparelli, then, began an age of fashion in which the inconvenient/ unbecoming was made possible.

This exhibition offers an invitation to get to know, through 250 costumes, drawings, accessories, perfumes, embroidery, jewellery, photographs and film, the art of an iconoclastic personality. V.B.

Until 29.8.2004
Elsa Schiaparelli
Musée de la Mode et du Textile
105-107 rue de Rivoli, Paris
T +33-1-44555750
https://www.ucad.fr