The Designer Ushering a Couture House Into a Brave New Era

For his debut as artistic director of Schiaparelli, Daniel Roseberry offers a vision all his own.

By

Aug. 12, 2019

SCHIAPARELLI. THE NAME alone conjures images of absurd beauty: lobsters as dresses, a shoe as a hat, a particularly blinding shade of pink — and, of course, the fearless Italian modernist herself, Elsa Schiaparelli, who fled her conservative Italian family and con man of a husband to become one of fashion’s great iconoclasts. And so it’s only fitting that, for his debut as artistic director at the house, founded in 1927, Daniel Roseberry began with an origin story of his own. On the first day of the Paris couture shows this past July, the handsome 33-year-old sat down at a drafting table positioned in the middle of the runway inside the Pavillon Cambon, on a set meant to resemble the unheated Chinatown studio in New York where he created his first set of drawings for the brand last December. As the designer picked up his pencil, the lights went up and the models appeared, his sketches coming to life. There were no lip brooches or skeleton dresses; none of the totems Elsa made famous. Instead, Roseberry put forth his own proposal for fearlessness and surrealism, a celebration of both material craftsmanship and the female form. There were wild takes on suiting — a long navy captain’s coat trimmed at the sleeves and bias in flat gold leather bands resembling ruffled military ribbons worn over a delicate black-and-white lace bodysuit; a sharp barathea tuxedo jacket with 117 dangling crystal tassels, each affixed to the garment with a single scarlet-lacquered acrylic fingernail — and fantastical evening looks, some with bedazzled breast cups in ruby, diamond and sapphire hues that appeared to float on their own above heavy raw silk tulip skirts in chalky blue, sunflower yellow or acid green. For the finale, two gowns — one sheet white, the other a wild rose pink — pushed the idea of illusion further still, with supple silk taffeta that billowed out and above the models as if a gust of Marilyn Monroe-style wind had blown these confections toward the heavens and frozen them in that moment. Here, as in the original house of Schiaparelli, there was no place for self-doubt.