Schiaparelli kicks off couture with entre-deux-guerres surrealism

Schiaparelli kicked off Paris haute couture week with a sensationally surreal collection that blended “entre-deux-guerres” imagery with punchy futurism.

With Dua Lipa, Cardi B and Brazilian star Anitta sitting front row inside the Petit Palais, the pre-show was a heated hive of paparazzi activity—even as it teemed with rain outside.

In this Fall/Winter 2025–26 collection, the house’s couturier, Daniel Roseberry, harkened back to the ’30s, referencing founder Elsa Schiaparelli’s decision to depart her adopted city of Paris in 1940, just after World War II had begun.

Riffing on the house’s archive and black-and-white photography of the ’20s and ’30s, the clothes ranged from steamy surrealism—like a little black dress that was essentially a tightly fitted saddle—to a series of sexy matadors. Some in dry black wool with archive leaf motifs, others in faded grey felt, their shoulders finished with mini saddles.

He mixed up transparent tulle and embroidered wool in dramatic evening coats or saucy suits and topped many looks with superb “Qui êtes-vous, Polly Maggoo?” pillbox hats or Henry Moore-like cloches.

Before going into overdrive for the evening—with bustier dresses and gowns in lamé and silver—several featured skillfully embroidered Eyes Wide Open eyeballs. One largely transparent slip dress finished in jade beads and pearls had a naked back, the better to reveal knickers composed of strass.

A back-to-front satin gown in red—essentially the only other color in this black-and-white show—wowed with a “beating heart necklace” hung at the back of the neck, over a pair of faux boobs.

All in juxtaposition to the soundtrack—a blend of LCD Soundsystem’s “Someone Great” and Mount Kimbie’s “Made to Stay.”

“Back to the future. This was definitely the most entrenched in the archive I have ever been. Looking at photography in black and white in Paris before the Germans invaded, and that twilight of glamour—of bias-cut dresses and what the Schiaparelli jacket was—ended. So, I wanted the timelessness of a desaturated black-and-white world,” explained Roseberry before his mood board in his post-show backstage.

There was less body modification than last season’s corset-driven looks, with a far more liquid shape to many gowns—sophisticated swans in galuchat or sinful red satin.

Overall, the aesthetic was Dalí-era diabolical blended with a certain raw sensuality—a rather brilliant way to start off the four-day Paris haute couture week.

“I think we are on the precipice of a major change, and I am not just talking geopolitically. So, in a weird way, this felt like a sort of swan song. I wanted it to be a farewell,” said Roseberry, who revealed that the house planned to restructure its whole atelier.

He called this display the last of a trilogy of collections: Phoenix, Icarus and—seeing as Cardi B exited the show with a black raven on her arm—this latest one would probably be Aphrodite.