cutting my teeth on schiaparelli
an examination of the designer, her design legacy, and the intersection of fashion and politics
Forget the Roman Empire. Y’all know what I think about at minimum once a week? Elsa Schiaparelli and teeth. For those who may be unfamiliar, Schiaparelli was an Italian born designer who was once rivals with Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel during the ‘20s to early ‘40s before the onset of World War II. While Chanel was cavorting with Nazis as a supporter of the Vichy regime, Schiaparelli left France in favor of New York to work with the French Red Cross, supplying medicine to children affected by the war1. Schiaparelli was a quiet antifascist and sought ways to fight back against the authoritarian regimes of Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler. Her most iconic act of resistance came indirectly, however.
A friend of hers, Thomas Kernan the commercial editor for Vogue, volunteered for ambulance duty on behalf of the Americans. So knowing that he was Catholic, Schiaparelli had a medal of the Virgin Mary to protect him made by Cartier. While abroad, Kernan was captured and placed into a concentration camp. After some time, his tooth began to ache, so he went to the dentist in the camp. The dentist then melted the gold down into a filling for Kernan.
Following this, he wrote a postcard to Schiaparelli: “Many people have clothes from Schiaparelli. Many people have dined and wined and had fun with her, but I, and I alone, have a tooth by Schiaparelli.” In her memoir (where I found this story), she shared that “it brought him luck, and he came out of it safe and well, with a solid gold tooth…this was a triumph of economics, friendship, and faith all mixed together!”2
🦷 🦷 🦷 🦷 🦷 🦷 🦷 🦷 🦷 🦷 🦷 🦷 🦷 🦷 🦷 🦷 🦷 🦷 🦷 🦷 🦷 🦷 🦷 🦷
As a designer, Schiaparelli was known for her surrealist and extravagant designs. She collaborated with artists like Salvador Dalí3, Jean Cocteau, Man Ray, Giacometti, and Marcel Vertès among others4. Her motifs were mesmerizing from the beginning, with her infamous black trompe l’oeil knit sweater designed to look as if it had a red or white bow. Many details focused on the human body. The most memorable example being her skeleton dress made in collaboration with Dalí5.
These types of designs allowed her to flourish in her heyday prior to the second World War; but after the War, consumers were more pared down, driven to designers like Christian Dior with his simple, refined “New Look.” Even after bringing on someone like Hubert de Givenchy for four years in 1947 was not enough to keep the house open. In 1954, Schiaparelli shuttered her maison at 21 Place Vendôme and began working on her memoir, Shocking Life. Nineteen years later, she passed away in her sleep6.
In 2006, Diego Della Valle, the CEO of Tod’s group, purchased the rights to the maison. For six years, he waited for the lease to become available at the original address to reopen the brand7. The spring of that same year, the Met had their annual gala for the Costume Institute with the theme “Prada and Schiaparelli: Impossible Conversations8,” which refreshed public consciousness of Schiaparelli. As the brand rebuilt its legacy, they filtered through several creative directors before landing on the perfect fit in Daniel Roseberry in 2019.
Roseberry had been the lead designer at Thom Browne, having worked there for a decade, starting as an intern in design school. Like me, Roseberry is a Dallas suburbanite called to the shining lights outside the Lone Star State. In his four years at the maison, he has revitalized the name of Schiaparelli with show-stopping looks for big names like Lady Gaga, Adele, Kylie Jenner, Doja Cat, and many, many others. Rather than try and reinvent the brand, he has opted to utilize existing motifs within the house code and applied them into a modern conversation within fashion9.
This can be seen with the clothes and their presentation, but also within the eclectic costume jewelry and gorgeous purses. These accessories feature many of the motifs Schiaparelli featured in her day. One that has stood out to me is the motif of teeth. I first noticed it on Roseberry’s sister, Liz Fox Roseberry’s TikTok account, where she received a piece of jewelry from Roseberry for her birthday10. The piece was a gilded chain necklace with a cuffed ear accented by green and red enamel sun rays beaming out. To fasten the piece, the toggle closure was composed of a bone and a golden tooth framing a pearl. Immediately, I was taken by that feature as someone who was obsessed with Ke$ha during her bra made of teeth days11.
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Once I saw that detail, I noticed it in other Schiaparelli pieces like earrings12 and brooches13. I have yet to find any evidence that Kernan served as the inspiration for the motif, but nonetheless, I find it to be an incredible full circle symbol. The story is a bit of a gobsmack because it is one of the most explicit examples that art and fashion are intrinsically linked to political, social, and cultural movements. If Schiaparelli and Kernan weren’t against oppressive fascist regimes, he wouldn’t have chosen to go abroad and she wouldn’t have felt it necessary to give him an amulet to protect him. When I share with people that fashion and its intersection with politics is fascinating to me, I usually get a cockeyed look, like “excuse me, but how are those two things connected?”
But the way I see it, fashion is a nonnegotiable necessity. We can’t be out in the streets butt naked for God and all the world to see. Which means we’re faced with a choice: do we wear something for the sake of utility and or for the sake of expression? Either choice has its merit, but that latter choice has so many directions it can take. This is where that intersection can come in. Whether it’s on the design or style side, there are so many ways it can manifest. And yes, there can be superficial expressions too, but the same can be said with anything else in life. I think one of the reasons why some people have a hard time recognizing the connection is because fashion is relegated to women’s stuff (read frivolous and unserious). Not all fashion is serious, but it is quite capable of that, and deserves more recognition. Which is why I think about that damn tooth at least once a week.
https://www.schiaparelli.com/en/21-place-vendome/the-story-of-the-house/
Schiaparelli, Elsa. Shocking Life. 2018 for V&A Publishing, London (og in 1954). pgs: 106-117 & 157.
https://thedali.org/press-room/dali-schiaparelli-debuts/
(this is a press release for an exhibit of their collaborations, but features a good archive of their work together).
https://www.schiaparelli.com/en/21-place-vendome/schiaparelli-and-the-artists
(for the Autumn/Winter ‘23 collection, Roseberry actually drew upon her various collaborations for inspiration creating some jaw-dropping looks).
https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O65687/the-skeleton-dress-evening-dress-elsa-schiaparelli/
(a little about this iconic dress from the V&A in London).
https://www.schiaparelli.com/en/21-place-vendome/the-story-of-the-house/
Wendlandt, Astrid. “Schiaparelli back in Paris after 60-year silence.” Reuters. January 20, 2014. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-fashion-france-schiaparelli/schiaparelli-brand-back-in-paris-fashion-after-60-year-silence-idUSBREA0J18Y20140120
https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2012/impossible-conversations
Heller, Nathan. “From Texas to the Place Vendôme: The Surreal World of Daniel Roseberry.” Vogue. September 2023. https://www.vogue.com/article/daniel-roseberry-schiaparelli-profile-september-2023
Fox Roseberry, Liz. TikTok.
Brillson, Leila. “Gross or Eccentric? Ke$ha Has a Bra Made Out of Her Fans’ Teeth.” Refinery 29. November 23, 2012. https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2012/11/39677/kesha-teeth-bra
https://www.schiaparelli.com/eshop/en/e-shop/jewelry/earrings/tooth-and-planet-earrings/p/ph22bi14s_001-u
https://veryvintage.com/blogs/very-vintage-blog/the-glamour-of-vintage-schiaparelli-jewellery