Schiaparelli’s dark circus

Elsa Schiaparelli is usually remembered for her whimsical and outlandish designs, shocking pink, butterfly-shaped buttons, the high heel hat and trompe l’oeil sweaters. What is less remembered are Schiaparelli’s darker designs. In the late 1930s, on the eve of World War II, Schiaparelli’s designs took a distinct sinister turn. This article explores two designs from her 1938 Circus Collection that were collaborations with the Surrealist artist Salvador Dalí: the Tear-Illusion Dress and the Skeleton Dress. Comparison of these designs with the work of contemporary designers Jean Paul Gaultier, Alexander McQueen and Olivier Theyskens shows the darker undertones of Schiaparelli’s Circus Collection and its significant impact on designers at the turn of the twenty-first century. These designs reassert the corporality and mortality of the clothed body and emphasize its vulnerability. Drawing on Caroline Evan’s readings of deathliness and trauma in postmodern fashion, I will examine these impulses in the work of Schiaparelli. This article will seek to show the dark side of Schiaparelli’s work and the ways in which she responded to the impending threat of totalitarianism in the late 1930s.