The Bite Magazine - Spring/Summer 2026 - Issue 39

biteexhibition Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art EXHIBITION Review V&A Museum E lsa Schiaparelli was a visionary Italian fashion designer and a dominant force in Paris between the two World Wars. Famous for her avant-garde, surrealist aesthetic, she blurred the lines between fashion and art, incorporating elements like the iconic ‘shoe hat’ and ‘lobster dress’ through her collab- orations with artist Salvador Dalí. Schiaparelli launched her design career in the 1920s with a knitwear collection before opening her legend- ary boutique, Schiaparelli Pour Le Sport (Schia- parelli for Sport), in 1930. Born in Rome in 1890 to a family of academics and aristocrats, Schiaparelli fled their expecta- tions early, leaving Italy at twenty‑three to pur- sue a life that refused convention. Her work was bold, audacious, and often deliberately shock- ing, shaped by a sensibility that placed fashion in direct conversation with art, performance, psychology, and the surreal. She also collaborat- ed with French poet and playwright Jean Cocte- au, American visual artist Man Ray, and Spanish painter and sculptor Pablo Picasso. Schiaparelli_ Fashion Becomes Art at V&A South Kensington (c) Victoria and Albert Museum, London (13) Leonor Fini for Schiaparelli, perfume bottle ‘Shocking’, 1937 © 2025 ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London. Photo_ Patrimoine Schiaparelli, Paris. Photograph © Emil Larsson Jada Brookes attended the Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery and was awed by the late designer’s vast creativity.