Elsa Schiaparelli (1890–1973) was an Italian fashion designer from an aristocratic background. She created the house of Schiaparelli in Paris in 1927, which she managed from the 1930s to the 1950s.
Fashion designs by Elsa Schiaparelli in the 1940s
Starting with knitwear, Schiaparelli’s designs celebrated Surrealism and eccentric fashions. Her collections were famous for unconventional and artistic themes like the human body, insects, or trompe-l’œil, and for the use of bright colors like her “shocking pink”.
Schiaparelli famously collaborated with Salvador Dalí and Jean Cocteau. Along with Coco Chanel, her greatest rival, she is regarded as one of the most prominent European figures in fashion between the two World Wars. Her clients included the heiress Daisy Fellowes and actress Mae West.
These beautiful photos captured portraits of classic beauties wearing Schiaparelli’s fashion designs in the 1940s.
Lisa Fonssagrives in Hudson Bay sable dip-backed cape by Gunther, black chin-tied bonnet by Schiaparelli, photo by Louise Dahl-Wolfe, painting by Max Weber, Harper’s Bazaar, December 1945
Model in fur-lined redingote is topped with a brown scarf lined with skunk that ties hood-like over your head by Schiaparelli, photo by François Kollar, Harper’s Bazaar UK, December 1945
Lisa Fonssagrives in black taffeta theater coat, the sleeves ballooning out and jutting skirt gathered on a low panel at Bergdorf Goodman, hat by Schiaparelli, photo by Genevieve Naylor, Harper’s Bazaar, April 1946
Ludmila Feodoseyevna modeling a Schiaparelli hat, photo by Horst P. Horst, Paris, 1946
Model in an iridescent taffeta dinner suit with an “illusion bustle” silhouette and worn with a little blue-rose maline bonnet by Elsa Schiaparelli, photo by John Rawlings, Paris, Vogue, October 15, 1946
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