Schiaparelli at the V&A – Review
August 1, 2026Schiaparelli at the V&A – Review. There are fashion exhibitions that feel like a pleasant wander through a well-dressed attic. Then there are fashion exhibitions that make you stop in front of a jacket and think, who on earth first looked at this and said yes, perfect, put a lobster on it. The Schiaparelli exhibition at the V&A belongs very much to the second category.
From the moment I walked in, I had the sense that Elsa Schiaparelli would have enjoyed watching people react to her work. There is mischief in almost every room. Fashion exhibitions can occasionally become a little too reverent. The lighting becomes dim. The labels become serious. Everybody speaks in hushed museum tones, as though discussing medieval manuscripts rather than evening gowns shaped like body parts. The V&A avoids that trap here. The exhibition still takes Schiaparelli seriously as a designer and artist, but it also understands that humour was central to her work. You cannot separate the elegance from the absurdity because, for Schiaparelli, the absurdity was the elegance.
Schiaparelli at the V&A – Review
Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art at V&A South Kensington (c) Victoria and Albert Museum, London
The exhibition moves through her career in a way that feels theatrical without becoming overwhelming. One room gives you surrealism in full force. Another focuses on craftsmanship and embroidery. Then suddenly you are staring at a shoe hat and wondering how something so ridiculous can still look chic. That is the strange magic of Schiaparelli. She managed to turn nonsense into luxury.
There is a tendency now to describe any slightly unusual fashion collection as “surreal”. Usually this means a model wore a large sleeve or somebody put sequins on a raincoat. Schiaparelli was doing something far stranger and far more intelligent. Her collaborations with artists such as Salvador Dalí and Jean Cocteau”,”French artist and filmmaker were not gimmicks, because they came from a genuine fascination with dreams, illusion, fantasy and the subconscious. She seemed deeply interested in the idea that clothing could confuse people a little. And confuse people she did.
One of the highlights for me was seeing the famous Skeleton Dress up close. In photographs, it already looks striking. In person, it is genuinely unsettling. The padded ribs and protruding spine create this eerie tension between glamour and anatomy. It feels playful at first glance, then suddenly rather macabre. I liked how the exhibition allowed that discomfort to sit there instead of smoothing it over.
Schiaparelli at the V&A – Review
Nearby, there were examples of the astonishing embroidery on her pieces. This is where the exhibition becomes almost hypnotic. You start by laughing at the concept of a dress covered in insects or celestial symbols, but then you move closer and realise the craftsmanship is extraordinary. Tiny beads, metallic threads, careful appliqué. Hours and hours of labour devoted to something delightfully strange.
It reminded me that Schiaparelli was not simply eccentric. She was disciplined. There is a temptation to think surrealism means chaos, but these garments are incredibly controlled. Every bizarre detail is placed with precision. I liked the tension between fantasy and structure throughout the exhibition.
The V&A also does a good job of placing Schiaparelli within her wider cultural world. There are photographs, sketches, jewellery, perfume bottles and magazine spreads that help build a picture of the era around her. You leave with a stronger sense of Paris between the wars, when art, fashion and celebrity seemed to overlap in fascinating ways.
Aristocrats
At times, the exhibition almost feels like a gathering of brilliant oddballs. You see glimpses of aristocrats, artists, actresses and socialites who all wanted a piece of Schiaparelli’s imagination. Some of the stories are wonderfully dramatic. There are feuds, rivalries and reinventions everywhere. Fashion history is rarely as tidy as museums sometimes make it appear.
The inevitable comparison throughout, of course, is with Coco Chanel. Chanel represented restraint, simplicity and modern ease. Schiaparelli seemed far more interested in provocation and spectacle. Chanel wanted to free women from decorative excess. Schiaparelli wanted to decorate them with giant insects, optical illusions and shocking pink. I know which sounds more fun.
One of the exhibition’s smartest choices is that it does not frame this contrast as a straightforward battle between good taste and bad taste. Instead, it suggests that fashion needs both instincts. Minimalism can become dull without somebody willing to introduce a little madness. Schiaparelli supplied that madness in abundance, albeit perhaps in a calculated manner.
Schiaparelli at the V&A – Review
However, for all the theatricality, there are moments of genuine beauty. A black evening jacket embroidered with gold details stopped me in my tracks. So did several of the capes. The silhouette of some pieces feels surprisingly modern. You can easily see echoes of Schiaparelli in contemporary couture. Designers today still borrow from her visual wit, whether they admit it or not.
I liked seeing how current the work still feels. That may be the exhibition’s greatest achievement. It avoids turning Schiaparelli into a dusty historical figure. Instead, she emerges as somebody startlingly contemporary. In an age of social media, celebrity dressing and viral fashion moments, her instinct for spectacle seems prophetic.
Additionally, she understood the power of an image long before Instagram existed. Some garments feel almost designed for modern internet culture. A gown with an enormous motif across the chest. A hat shaped like an upside-down shoe. Jewellery resembling insects crawling over the body. These pieces practically demand to be photographed.
Shocking Pink
Schiaparelli at the V&A – Review. The exhibition also explores her famous use of colour, especially “Shocking Pink”, which remains one of fashion’s great branding triumphs. The colour itself still has force. It appears throughout the exhibition like a visual exclamation mark.
There is one section devoted to accessories that became similarly unexpectedly fascinating. I ended up lingering over buttons, hats and jewellery for ages. Schiaparelli approached accessories with the same sense of theatrical invention as her clothing. Nothing was merely functional. A handbag could become a joke. A clasp could become sculpture. An elegant hat could become complete nonsense, for instance.
There is something deeply appealing about a designer who looked at the conventions of elegance and decided they needed more absurdity. A little more risk. A little more wit. The exhibition celebrates that impulse without smoothing away its contradictions. Schiaparelli emerges as glamorous, difficult, brilliant, theatrical and therefore occasionally ridiculous. Which is probably exactly how she would have wanted it.
Schiaparelli: Fashion becomes Art is on at the V&A South Kensington until 8th November 2026.
