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FashionMusicArtCulture

Daniel Roseberry Liberates Imagination at Schiaparelli

02 February 2025

In the hands of American Daniel Roseberry, the Schiaparelli Couture collection has become a noted staple of the Parisian Haute Couture calendar. Their Spring/Summer 2025 collection took inspiration from the Greek myth of Icarus, an ancient story of a young boy whose ambition to fly to the heavens led to his demise—a surprising point of inspiration for any designer when, in theory, the tale reflects man’s hubris. However, Roseberry interprets the metaphor as a call to embrace risk-taking, emphasising to both the audience and himself that achieving the highest ambitions necessitates uncertainty. In the show notes, he remarked, “I’m so tired of everyone constantly equating modernity with simplicity ... Has our fixation on what looks or feels modern become a limitation? Has it cost us our imagination?” Perhaps he feels that our collective quest to seek modernity has come at the price of our own creativity, a lesson he has now attempted to revise for the masses. 

Roseberry unveiled a collection that reckons with a limitless vision, a collection where excessiveness is celebrated rather than despised. His delicate manipulations of silhouette were reflected with bulbous busts and cinching waistlines. The grand proportions of the classic Basque jackets were paired with satin gowns and endless chains of pearls and feathers. Sculptures have essentially become a part of Schiaparelli’s house codes, along with the keyhole, the dove, and the anatomy. Nearly every look examined new ways of expanding the female form. Not only was this achieved with strapless bustiers, exaggerated at the hipline, but also in the chiffons and silks of the dresses themselves. The fabrics and embroidery of the collection were also lush and extravagant, with a near-excessive use of fine silk and monkey fur. Another look took intricate pleating and extreme craftsmanship to create a satin dress with ribbon-like strips that formed the entire length of the garment, which was more an art piece than a garment.

The collection was filled with nods and tributes to iconic couturiers of the past like Yves Saint Laurent and Azzedine Alaïa. He looked to the extremely moulded waists and techniques of said legendary couturiers and brought them together with design features that made Schiaparelli successful in the mid-20th century. On Roseberry's runway, the motifs designed first by founder Elsa Schiaparelli appeared like treasures, from the unique opulence of the lace embroidery to the Art Deco curves and various column gowns. Corseting, a Schiaparelli trademark, was approached with surrealist anarchy with its structure and boning.

Roseberry has continued to stick to his vision of modernising the image of a contemporary Schiaparelli woman. It seems that his boldness, akin to Icarus's aspirations to soar above the clouds, inspires him to strive for even greater heights than before.

 

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