The mythology of Schiaparelli is really based on iconography.
That’s what she did.
It was very ahead of her time,
and we're still running to catch up.
Hi, I’m Daniel Roseberry,
and these are Schiaparelli’s five most viral moments from 2021.
So the first look is an absinthe green,
six-pack-moulded leather bustier
with a draped bias silk velvet skirt.
It was kind of ground zero, I think,
when we start talking about the last year of VIP that we’ve had.
Around this time in November,
Kim's team came to us and asked us to make her Christmas ensemble.
It was really in a prototype phase when we got the call from Kim,
but we kind of thought,
“Well, actually, she’s the perfect person.”
Schiaparelli has a unique history of challenging beauty norms,
I think, in couture.
It gives permission for me and for the house to
explore what beauty looks like,
so that’s really where the six-pack came from.
I wanted to do a collection that was more about strength,
and bodybuilding,
and sort of the protective nature of musculature.
You know, we presented a few options to Kim,
some more classic, and also this version,
and she went with this version,
and that's one of the reasons why she is what she is.
So here we have Lady Gaga in her iconic inauguration look,
and it’s a navy cashmere jacket,
and she recently revealed that it’s bulletproof
because this has just happened right after the riots
and the insurrection that happened at the Capitol.
And then a red over-dyed silk faille huge grand flou skirt.
Then we have a hammered gold dove that is classic Schiaparelli gold.
I got a call that was from Gaga’s team
that she had just confirmed to sing at the inauguration—
I think it was in nine days—
and that they were wondering if we could make her something.
Originally, the brief was all white,
but when she saw the doves,
she actually proposed to do it in a red, white, and blue
iconic American colour scheme,
which was a genius move.
Within a week, we were sitting around a TV screen.
We didn’t know if she was going to wear it or not
until she walked through the doors.
Everyone at the team burst into tears.
I get chills just talking about it even still
because it was such an honour to be a part of that moment.
So, yeah, thank you, Gaga. That was amazing.
It doesn’t really get much better than this.
This is Bella in the gold lungs from the couture.
It was a perfect fit.
It’s a black long-sleeve wool-crepe gown,
and the whole décolleté is cut out,
and it’s leaving space for the gold bijoux lungs.
So this idea came quite late.
We were coming out of lockdown,
and we had all been so obsessing over our COVID status
and really talking without talking about the lungs,
but talking about the health of our respiratory system and everything.
And I just thought,
“What if we just almost fetishised the lungs,
fetishise this moment in history as well?”
We built these lungs one capillary at a time.
They were made by an artisan in Paris by hand,
and then they're covered in Swarovski crystals.
Bella was in Paris when we showed the couture.
She said that when she saw that look in the look book,
because we didn't have a show,
she knew it was for her.
And she took it to Cannes and wore it,
and the rest is history.
Cardi is wearing a Stephen Jones headpiece.
I wanted it to look like a scarf that’s being blown out in mid-air.
And then she’s wearing a tweed jacket
that has the gold boobs moulded in leather.
And then the gloves with all of the Schiaparelli bijoux—
the teeth that have become rings, and then the visage pendants.
She has so much charm,
and I think that she brings so much personality to these pieces.
That’s what’s so cool is that even a piece this strong
is totally dominated, actually, by Cardi’s energy
and her amazing personality.
Even with something as classic as a tweed jacket,
it should be like a siren song sort of like calling you to it.
And really, the body parts have become the key.
When people see their own body parts covered in gold
or moulded in leather reflected back at them,
there is a visceral reaction and an attraction that people feel,
and we are 100 percent exploiting that
and really owning that
because now you know if you see body parts in gold or in leather
or I guess on a tweed jacket, you know what it is.
It’s Schiaparelli.
So, right now we’re looking at a pair of bijoux for the face.
And what we started talking about a lot on this collection was
disobedient jewellery.
Jewellery that became so completely aggressive
that it started to cover parts of your body,
parts of your face.
And what’s cool about this is that it really is,
relatively speaking, just the beginning of the conversation.
There was something about a lot of the imagery from this show
that really showed us as a company and me
the power of iconography
and Schiaparelli [as] more than a silhouette.
It’s not a colour combination.
The mythology of Schiaparelli is really based on iconography.
That’s what she did.
It’s more about these iconic ideas or images that get under your skin.
And that's really what I have tried to do,
and it gives a lot of space for different things.
Muscles, chic, bad taste, good taste, everything.
As long as it's kind of visually iconic,
it feels like Schiaparelli to me.