Schiaparelli opens Paris Haute Couture Week with silicone and pearls
The bodice was sculpted by hand and cast in silicone. The lace on the jacket is painted on. And tentacles walked the runway.
Paris Haute Couture Week opens with whoever has something to show. This time Schiaparelli went first, and the house answered with a collection better described as a dive than a runway. The name says it: The Abyss.
Start with the dress whose bodice looks like an anatomical cast. It was not moulded — it was sculpted by hand, then cast in silicone and painted sky blue. Daniel Roseberry, in charge since 2019, says the team developed techniques and materials couture simply did not have.
Then a white silicone jacket with lace that is not there: the pattern is painted in trompe-l'oeil. Hardly new for this house — Elsa Schiaparelli herself used the trick almost a century ago.
The sea runs through everything. Black latex with tentacles. A tulle dress buried under black silicone dots that read as scales or as a jellyfish, depending on the angle. Beside them, ultra-fitted synthetic corsets, sheer embroidered skirts and trousers entirely covered in pearls.
Oscar winner Michelle Yeoh and Bad Bunny watched from the front row, the singer fresh off two Paris concerts, in a pastel yellow suit with a braided gold tie and two unmistakable brooches on the lapel: a padlock and an eye.
The week is only warming up. Dior showed the same day with Jonathan Anderson's second couture collection. Chanel and Matthieu Blazy follow on Tuesday; Balenciaga and Jean Paul Gaultier on Wednesday, both with new creative directors after sitting out last season. Thirty houses show through Thursday.
Couture remains a Paris affair: the shows happen only here, in January for summer and in July for winter. Every piece is one of a kind and sewn by hand.