ELSA SCHIAPARELLI: A Biography

Meryle Secrest

Alfred A. Knopf, New York, USA

Year 2014

Pages 306

This book presents the biography of Elsa Schiaparelli – the grand couturier, surrealist, and embattled figure (her medium was apparel), whose extraordinary work has stood the test of time. Her style was a social revolution through clothing –luxurious, eccentric, ironic, sexy; synonymous with fashion innovation and chicesse. She was audacious; her fashions were inspired from the whimsical to the most practical-from a Venetian cape of the commedia dell’arte to a Soviet parachute. She collaborated on her designs with some of the greatest artists of the 20th century: on jewelry with Jean Schlumberger; on clothes with Salvador Dalí; with Jean Cocteau, Alberto Giacometti; with photographers Man Ray, Horst, Cecil Beaton, and the young Richard Avedon. She was known as the Queen of Fashion; a headline attraction in the international glitter-glamour show of the late 20’s and 30’s.