Elsa
Schiaparelli has been having something of a moment. Albeit a long overdue
moment. A contemporary of Chanel between the wars, unlike her rival,
Schiaparelli's name, if not her work, fell from sight. Then something happened.
First, in 2006, Diego Della Valle, owner of Tods, bought her trademarks and
archives, announcing a renaissance of the label in 2012. Then an
"impossible conversation" was imagined between Schiaparelli and the
designer who is, perhaps more than any other, the inheritor of her mantle:
Miuccia Prada. Both women iconoclasts, both art lovers, both more interested in
stretching boundaries than operating within them.
And
so, the Schiap was firmly back on the fashion map.
I
confess that, other than Schiaparelli pink, I knew shamefully little about
Schiaparelli until that stunning exhibition of the two women's work at the New
York Metropolitan Museum of Art. So I was fascinated to read a quirky new
memoir by New York writer, Patricia Volk. Entitled The Art Of Being A Woman, it
must have taken all the publisher's willpower not to call it What Would the
Schiap do? Because fundamentally that is how Volk lived her life from the
moment she discovered Schiaparelli's biography, Shocking Life, as a child. Just
as Volk was examining and rejecting the blueprint for domesticity and
femininity laid out for her by her mother, Audrey, the very picture of 1950s
upper east side perfection.
Schiaparelli's
most famous fragrance, Shocking, is the scent of Volk's mother - gifted to her
annually on her birthday, January 21st, by Volk's father - but that is where
the similarities stop. Audrey stands for perfection and glamour, conformity;
she is proper. And she sets about imposing those mores on her daughter.
Schiaparelli, on the other hand, prided herself in taking all those things and
standing them on their head. Her Dali collaboration, the Lobster dress (below), the
very antithesis of all things Audrey.
![]() |
The Lobster dress |
Under
the guidance of these two contrasting notions of just about everything - from
frocks to lipstick to getting, and keeping, (naturally), a man - the young Volk
embarks on a quest to discover her own style, her own way of being a woman.
Illustrated
with photographs and memorabilia, this nostalgic look at 50s Manhattan is not for
everyone (show me a book that is). But if you have even a passing interest in
fashion history then you will love this homage to a woman who shaped the way we
dress far more than she is credited for.
"There
has to be more than one way to be a woman...' Says the cover blurb. "And
if there is more than one way, chances are there are many." And so it
turns out. I think the Schiap would be
proud.
(This piece was first published on Bazaar on Books blog www.harpersbazaar.co.uk/blogs, 8th May 2013.)
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