A dress with bones, a coat embroidered with faces, a hat turned upside down. Elsa Schiaparelli had little interest in letting clothing behave itself. Those unruly ideas take centre stage in Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art, the first UK exhibition devoted to the Maison, bringing together more than 400 objects across a century of fashion, art and performance.
Behind the scenes of Schiaparelli. Fashion Becomes Art at V&A South Kensington. Photo: Jamie Stoker.
Open now in the V&A’s Sainsbury Gallery until 8 November 2026, the exhibition begins with Schiaparelli's earliest experiments in transforming the everyday wardrobe. Her 1927 trompe l'oeil bow-knot sweater, given to the V&A by the designer herself, captures an approach that would become central to her practice: using textile and construction to make clothing playful, surprising and visually disruptive. Practical daywear received the same treatment. Trouser suits, sharply tailored skirts and jackets with unusual buttons brought an inventive sensibility to the modern woman's wardrobe, while eveningwear moved towards shimmering lamé, elaborate appliqué and theatrical imagery.
Lobster Dress by Elsa Schiaparelli, designed in collaboration with Salvador Dalí. Paris, Summer 1937. Silk organza © 2025 Salvador Dalí, Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, DACS. Photo: Philadelphia Museum of Art. Gift of Mme Elsa Schiaparelli.
Textiles became a particularly potent meeting point between Schiaparelli and the artists around her. In 1930s Paris, she worked with figures including Salvador Dalí, Jean Cocteau, Man Ray, Alberto Giacometti, Leonor Fini and Meret Oppenheim, translating surrealist ideas into surfaces, silhouettes and objects for the body. The 1938 Skeleton dress, with its raised anatomical forms, remains one of the most striking examples of this collaboration. Nearby, Dalí's Lobster Telephone appears alongside the 1937 lobster dress that preceded it, revealing how an image could move between painting, fashion and sculpture.
Drawing for Schiparelli by Jean Cocteau. Pencil and coloured pencil on paper, 1937. On loan from West Dean (The Edward James Foundation).
Cocteau's influence is equally compelling. An evening coat created with Schiaparelli carries mirrored faces worked in gold thread, forming a vase from which pink silk roses emerge. Elsewhere, portraits, drawings and commissioned designs demonstrate how extensively Schiaparelli incorporated the wider art world into her house, extending even to advertisements and boutique interiors.
Mae West wearing Elsa Schiaparelli in Every Day's A Holiday (1937), A Edward Sutherland (Director). Moviestore Collection Ltd, Alamy.
London forms an important part of this story. Schiaparelli opened her Mayfair salon in 1933, establishing a distinctive presence in Britain and connecting her work with the country's emerging surrealist circles. Among the rarely seen London-labelled garments is a burgundy velvet suit richly embroidered with gold, alongside an oyster-coloured crinkled rayon wedding dress threaded with metal, worn by art collector Rosalinde Gilbert. Her relationship with performance also brought her textile imagination onto stage and screen, including a costume made for Mae West in Every Day's a Holiday.
Kuba Dabrowski Awar Odhiang, Paris, 2025 Schiaparelli by Daniel Roseberry Schiaparelli haute couture fall winter 2024 © Kuba Dabrowski. Photo courtesy Patrimoine Schiaparelli, Paris.
The exhibition closes with Daniel Roseberry, who has led Schiaparelli since 2019. Draping, embroidery and embellishment remain fundamental to his couture practice, while sculptural forms push the house's surrealism into contemporary territory. A glittering gown worn by Ariana Grande at the 2025 Oscars and a new interpretation of the Skeleton dress created for Dua Lipa at the 2024 Golden Globes demonstrate how Schiaparelli's ideas continue to migrate between cloth, body and popular culture.
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Further Information:
Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art is on show now until 8 November 2026 at V&A South Kensington, London.
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Image Credits:
Lead: Evening coat, designed by Elsa Schiaparelli and Jean Cocteau, 1937, London, England. ©2025 ADAGP DACS Comite Cocteau, Paris. Photograph © Emil Larsson.
All further images as credited in captions.