Elsa and Edie: Plausible Conversations

Following in the tradition of the Vanity Fair ‘Impossible Interviews’ of the 1930s and the recent exhibition ‘Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations’, this creative work takes two real-life personages and places them together in an imagined context in conversation with each other. We do not know if Elsa Schiaparelli and Little Edie Beale ever met one another, but it is quite likely that they did, as they inhabited the same cultural and social spheres, and geographical locations at the same time in history. By directly quoting from their writings and recorded speech it is possible to construct a conversation between these two women that depicts them both reflecting upon similarities in their parallel fashion careers, personal achievements and regrets, and philosophizing upon truth, religion, men and war.