Lobsters and red carpet gowns: A new show celebrates Schiaparelli’s surrealist fashion

LONDON (AP) — London’s Victoria & Albert Museum is opening a new exhibition celebrating the bold and surrealist designs of Italian fashion house Schiaparelli, from dresses created in collaboration with Salvador Dalí to show-stopping red carpet gowns worn by Ariana Grande.

The exhibition traces a century of art and innovation at the couture house, charting the way founder Elsa Schiaparelli worked with leading artists in Paris in the 1930s to current creative director Daniel Roseberry, who continues to capture global attention by dressing stars like Margot Robbie in sculptural designs.

“‘Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art’ will celebrate one of the most ingenious and daring designers in fashion history,” museum director Tristram Hunt said Wednesday.

Highlights among the 400 objects on show include Dalí’s famous Lobster Telephone, from 1938, displayed along with the “Lobster Dress,” a white silk gown embellished with a red lobster that Schiaparelli created with the surrealist artist. The dress was famously worn by Wallis Simpson, the American socialite whom King Edward VIII abdicated to marry.

Another collaboration with Dalí is the “Skeleton dress,” a black dress with 3D quilting resembling the contours of human bones.

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“You cannot imagine how shocking this would have been in 1938 when it was first shown. It is a kind of punk look,” Rosalind McKever, one of the show’s curators, told The Associated Press.

Also on show is an evening coat with pink silk roses created by Schiaparelli and French artist Jean Cocteau, who died in 1963.

Coco Chanel, one of Schiaparelli’s contemporaries, famously described her as “that Italian artist who’s making clothes,” McKever said. “But Schiaparelli would have taken that as a compliment because she was so integrated in this artistic community,” she said. “She even said, ‘For me, dress designing is not a profession, but an art.’”

Schiaparelli opened her first Paris business in 1927, designing practical daywear like trouser suits, an unusual choice for women at the time, as well as more imaginative and whimsical items such as shoes with leopard fur.

She went on to design clothes and costumes for famous fans like Mae West and Marlene Dietrich, who favored the designer’s sharply tailored trouser suits.

While the designer retired in the 1950s and died in 1973, current designer Roseberry has taken on the mantle and brought Schiaparelli’s creative legacy and haute couture drama to a modern audience.

One of the most eye-catching displays is a red jewel-encrusted dress worn by Grande to last year’s Oscars for a medley performance from “Wicked.” The sumptuous ball gown features a ruby slipper protruding from the back of the dress in tribute to “The Wizard of Oz.”

There are also sparkling cabinets filled with jewelry, buttons and perfume bottles, each created like a work of art.

The exhibition opens on Saturday and runs until Nov. 8.