Works

Information about the work and context of creation

In 1931, Spanish tennis player Lilí Álvarez participated in Roland Garros with a comfortable set of shirt and skort that facilitated her movements, designed by Elsa Schiaparelli. This unusual outfit forever changed the female tennis wardrobe and ushered in sports fashion designed for women.

The fact that Schiaparelli designed the wardrobe of a tennis player is no coincidence. The dressmaker had created her career by combining fashion and art. If Coco Chanel was the designer of Cubism, the Italian designer was inspired by Dadaism and Surrealism to create her models with vaporous shapes, surprising prints and trompe-l’œil designs. The two designers fostered this rivalry in the late 1920s and throughout the 1930s. Although both Chanel and Schiaparelli played in the haute couture league, the latter always showed concern for creating easily wearable and affordable pieces for all types of audiences. (Víctor Solvas, 2019). Available in:
https://www.viaempresa.cat/es/afterwork/elsa-schiaparelli-y-la-revolucion-del-vestuario-femenino-en-wimbledon_206873_102.html (02/04/2022)
 
Elsa Schiaparelli was influenced by Paul Poiret. Gabrielle Picabia and avant-garde artists such as Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp and Edward Steichen are included among her friends.
She worked in jewellery companies such as Elsa Triolet, Jean Dunand, Alberto Giacometti, Meret Oppenheim, Jean Schlumberger, Jean Clément, Lina Baretti; Jean-Michel Frank for decoration; Pérugia, with the design of the fragrance bottles; Roger Vivier, with shoes; and Lesage, with embroidery. She also worked with Dadaists and Surrealists such as Jean Cocteau and especially Salvador Dalí. For his perfumes he designed bottles with novel shapes. One of them was inspired by the actual measurements of the great actress, screenwriter and producer Mae West, who was a client of his. He also had dealings with Gala through Dalí. Another of his clients was Wallis Simpson. The surrealism that inspired Schiaparelli included significant artists contemporary to Elsa, such as Leonor Fini, the great surrealist painter Remedios Varo and Leonora Carrington, as well as Dorothea Tanning, a late surrealist painter and artist, among others.

 
Women in fashion. Available in: 
https://artsandculture.google.com/exhibit/women-in-fashion/3wKyCoSDxiS2KQ (02/04/2022)

Indications

In Plastic and Visual Education in aspects related to textile and fashion creation.
In the subject of Fashion in the Higher Schools of Art and Design.
In Art History together with Surrealism and Dadaism.

Documents