The house of Schiaparelli unveiled its Haute Couture Fall/Winter 2025-2026 collection this morning in Paris, titled “Back to the Future”.
Creative director Daniel Roseberry presented a show that revisited Elsa Schiaparelli’s legacy through a modern lens, drawing on her radical approach to fashion in the early 20th century while challenging contemporary ideas of elegance and identity.
The collection reflects on a pivotal moment in 1940 when Elsa left Paris for New York, marking a personal and geographical shift as well as the end of a defining era in fashion. The show is rooted in the duality of that time; a city gripped by war but also on the brink of a new modern aesthetic. Roseberry positions this collection as a meditation on that period, where black-and-white visuals and ambiguity between past and future dominate.
Abandoning Schiaparelli’s signature corseted silhouettes, the new collection explores freedom of movement with experimental tailoring that defines the waist and hips in unconventional ways. The house’s familiar codes are approached obliquely: tailoring conceals keyhole and anatomical motifs, rendered in ceramic elements. Scarves are embroidered with Swiss dots and measuring tapes using techniques from Elsa’s era.
Materials play a central role, with Donegal wool and high-shine satines shaping sharply cut dinner suits and jackets embroidered in silver and iridescent threads. The Elsa jacket, a sharp-shouldered piece referencing archival designs, reappears in both woollen and eveningwear iterations, representing a new take on structured clothing that avoids corsetry.
The show’s surrealist language is consistent throughout, aligning with the house’s legacy. Pieces include a reinterpretation of the iconic “Apollo” cape in layers of metal starbursts and jewels, a “Squiggles and Wiggles” tulle dress adorned with shell-shaped embroidery, and coats encrusted with pearls and baroque details. The “Eyes Wide Open” dress features a motif hand-painted in silver, framed in resin and decorated with silk tulle and metallic threads.
Roseberry concludes by noting that while nostalgia can be comforting, it must be used to shape forward-thinking design. He recalls Elsa’s wartime contributions, including her delivery of 13,000 vitamin capsules to the French minister in Lisbon. The collection, according to Roseberry, is a reminder that “looking backwards is nothing if we can’t find something meaningful to bring into our future.”
