47 Facts About Elsa Schiaparelli

Elsa Schiaparelli was a fashion designer from an Italian aristocratic background.

Elsa Schiaparelli created the house of Schiaparelli in Paris in 1927, which she managed from the 1930s to the 1950s.

Elsa Schiaparelli famously collaborated with Salvador Dali and Jean Cocteau.

Elsa Schiaparelli's clients included the heiress Daisy Fellowes and actress Mae West.

Elsa Luisa Maria Schiaparelli was born at the Palazzo Corsini, Rome.

Elsa Schiaparelli's mother, Giuseppa Maria de Dominicis, was a Neapolitan aristocrat.

Elsa Schiaparelli's father, Celestino Schiaparelli, a Piedmontese, was an accomplished scholar with multiple areas of interest.

Elsa Schiaparelli's studies focused on the Islamic world and the era of the Middle Ages and he was, in addition, an authority on Sanskrit and a curator of medieval manuscripts.

Elsa Schiaparelli served as Dean of the University of Rome, where Schiaparelli would herself later go on to study philosophy.

Elsa Schiaparelli became enraptured with the lore of ancient cultures and religious rites.

Once within the school's confines, Elsa Schiaparelli rebelled against its strict authority by going on a hunger strike, leaving her parents with no alternative but to bring her home again.

Elsa Schiaparelli was dissatisfied by a lifestyle that, whilst refined and comfortable, she considered cloistered and unfulfilling.

Elsa Schiaparelli's craving for adventure and exploration of the wider world led to her taking measures to remedy this, and when a friend offered her a post caring for orphaned children in an English country house, she saw an opportunity to leave.

Elsa Schiaparelli fled to London to avoid the certainty of marriage to a persistent suitor, a wealthy Russian whom her parents favored and for whom she herself felt no attraction.

Elsa Schiaparelli was reported to have legally changed his name in England to Wilhelm Frederick Wendt de Kerlor, a combination of his father's last name and mother's maiden name.

Elsa Schiaparelli played the role of her husband's helpmate and helped facilitate the promotion of his fraudulent schemes.

Elsa Schiaparelli's wife acted as his assistant, providing clerical support for self-promotions crafted to provide the newspapers with sensational copy, win celebrity, and garner acclaim.

Almost immediately after their child, Maria Luisa Yvonne Radha, was born on 15 June 1920, de Kerlor moved out leaving Elsa Schiaparelli alone with their newborn daughter.

Elsa Schiaparelli apparently made no efforts to bring her husband back or to seek support payments for herself and Gogo.

Elsa Schiaparelli assisted Man Ray with his Dada magazine Societe Anonyme, which proved short lived.

Elsa Schiaparelli had no training in the technical skills of pattern making and clothing construction.

Elsa Schiaparelli launched a new collection of knitwear in early 1927 using a special double layered stitch created by Armenian refugees and featuring sweaters with surrealist images.

Elsa Schiaparelli added evening wear to her collections in 1931, using the luxury silks of Robert Perrier, and the business went from strength to strength, in 1935, culminating in a move from Rue de la Paix to acquiring the renowned salon of Louise Cheruit at 21 Place Vendome, which was rechristened the Schiap Shop.

Colin McDowell noted that by 1939 Elsa Schiaparelli was well known enough in intellectual circles to be mentioned as the epitome of modernity by the Irish poet Louis MacNeice.

The house of Elsa Schiaparelli struggled in the austerity of the post-war period.

Elsa Schiaparelli discontinued her couture business in 1951, and finally closed down the heavily indebted design house in December 1954, the same year that her great rival Coco Chanel returned to the business.

In 1954, Elsa Schiaparelli published her autobiography Shocking Life and then lived out a comfortable retirement between her Paris apartment and house in Tunisia.

Elsa Schiaparelli died on 13 November 1973 at the age of 83.

Elsa Schiaparelli was one of the first designers to develop the wrap dress, taking inspiration from aprons to produce a design that would accommodate and flatter all female body types.

Elsa Schiaparelli is one of the designers credited with offering the first clothes with visible zippers in 1930.

Elsa Schiaparelli used chunky plastic zippers made from cellulose nitrate, the first semi-synthetic plastic fabric, and cellulose acetate.

Elsa Schiaparelli was renowned for her unusual buttons, which could resemble candlesticks, playing card emblems, ships, crowns, mirrors, and crickets; or silver tambourines and silk-covered carrots and cauliflowers.

In 1936 Elsa Schiaparelli was one of the first people to recognise the potential of Jean Schlumberger who she originally employed as a designer of buttons.

Elsa Schiaparelli's output included distinctive costume jewellery in a wide range of novelty designs.

Elsa Schiaparelli was noted for her use of innovative textiles which were woven to resemble textures such as tree bark or crepe paper; a plush made to mimic ermine; and novelty prints including a fabric patterned with newspaper clippings.

Elsa Schiaparelli made garments from crumpled rayon 50 years before Issey Miyake produced similarly pleated and crinkled pieces.

Elsa Schiaparelli enjoyed playing with juxtapositions of colours, shapes, and textures, and embraced the new technologies and materials of the time.

Elsa Schiaparelli collaborated with a number of contemporary artists, most famously with Salvador Dali, to develop a number of her most notable designs.

Elsa Schiaparelli had a good relationship with other artists including Leonor Fini, Meret Oppenheim, and Alberto Giacometti.

In 1937 Elsa Schiaparelli collaborated with the artist Jean Cocteau to produce two of her most notable art-themed designs for that year's Autumn collection.

The designs Elsa Schiaparelli produced in collaboration with Dali are among her best known.

Elsa Schiaparelli designed the wardrobes for several films, starting with the French version of 1933's Topaze, and ending with Zsa Zsa Gabor's outfits for the 1952 biopic of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Moulin Rouge in which Gabor played Jane Avril.

Elsa Schiaparelli famously dressed Mae West for Every Day's a Holiday using a mannequin based on West's measurements, which inspired the torso bottle for Shocking perfume.

The House of Elsa Schiaparelli was first opened in the 1930s at 21 Place Vendome.

Elsa Schiaparelli, using a hyper-exclusive business strategy, is to sell its first collection exclusively at a by-appointment boutique in Paris.

The failure of her business meant that Elsa Schiaparelli's name is not as well remembered as that of her great rival Chanel.

Elsa Schiaparelli's perfumes were noted for their unusual packaging and bottles.