...Peanuts, mermaids and crickets, treble clefs and parrots...
What do they all have in common? Buttons! Oh, lovely buttons (I do like a good button). More precisely - buttons designed by the Italian surrealist fashion provocateur, Elsa Schiaparelli (1890-1973), whose exhibition at the V&A I felt privileged to visit last Friday.
I've written about Elsa before here - she of the famous Lobster Dress (as worn by Wallis Simpson) - as I've had a mild obsession with her for a few years now, so the chance to see some of her extraordinary ideas in the - cloth? - was not to be missed. It was wonderful to take it all in, the beautiful tailoring and the idiosyncratic details, especially, which had passed me by in photos. For instance, I had no idea about the zips... (I'll come back to buttons later!)
Zips didn't really gain functional popularity until the 1920s when they were used on boots (and the name 'Zipper' - after a pair of ladies' boots in which they featured - replaced their previous rather less catchy label of 'separable fastener'). But Elsa was one of the first to incorporate the zip as a design feature in itself (and there was me thinking that Vivienne Westwood and punk were the originators). One of her most controversial garments was the 'Skeleton Dress', a collaboration with Salvador Dali, which had large plastic zips down one seam and on both shoulders. It was brilliant to see this for real but my photo of it hasn't turned out well so here's a better one... Look at that bone structure!
But there were other zips in unexpected places too, big chunky plastic zips, and these gave the garments such an air of modernity that it was hard to believe they were nearly 100 years old. There was a gorgeous evening dress with zips on the insides of the long sleeves - not only that, but this was the very first time a camouflage pattern had been used purely for fashion fabric. This was made in 1931... I would happily wear it now.
So, what about the buttons? Elsa's ideas were made real for her by various jewellers and sculptors, amongst them Alberto Giacometti and Jean Schlumberger (best known for his work for Tiffany & Co) and were fantastically, skilfully crafted in all their intricacy but it's what went on in her artistic mind that particularly appeals to me.Very up my street. Just the concept alone of turning a carrot into a fastening device, for instance, and just look at the fabric on this where these cheeky vegetable buttons are featured - your five a day and more... ? This was from 1941, a time when French women in particular were being encouraged to grow their own veg.
Then there were the acrobats, as mentioned in my post title - part of Elsa's 'Circus Collection' from 1938. These were handmade buttons, trapeze artists leaping out from the opening of a pink jacket which also featured blue performing horses with metallic thread manes and saddles.
Oh, I could go on - how brilliant it was to see the actual Lobster Dress, to look at the fancy bottles for Schiaparelli's 'Shocking' brand of perfume, to enjoy the collaborative masterpieces such as those made with Jean Cocteau... (note the embroidered signature bottom right.)
and just to fall in love with some of her fabrics
as well as to learn about the exquisitely tailored women's suits with a proliferation of large pockets which were named 'cash and carry' pockets, designed to replace the need for fiddly handbags during wartime uncertainty. Very practical, just grab your essentials, stow them safely in your deep pockets and run.
Well ok - I did go on, but still there is so much more and there's an awful lot that wasn't even in the exhibition; I didn't notice any underwear, for instance! I had hoped to see this favourite...
But, in summary, it was a joy and my mild obsession with Elsa's playful, life-affirming and classily eccentric take on clothes remains as strong as ever. I just wish I could wear some myself.
NB - There were also several items created for the continuing Elsa Schiaparelli label in recent years by other designers, many of which have been worn by celebrities such as Dua Lipa and Beyoncé. But they don't feature here as they just didn't do it for me, they looked far too contrived, self-consciously outrageous and OTT, as if just for the sake of it - very much a reflection of now, rather than of Elsa Schiaparelli's own, distinctive era of surrealism.
'Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art' is on at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London until 8th November 2026.
