Review Of Schiaparelli's Haute Couture Fall-Winter 2022/2023 Collection

Daniel Roseberry paid homage to Christian Lacroix for this collection.

Schiaparelli haute couture fall/winter 2022/2023 — Photo: Schiaparelli

By RACHEL TASHJIAN - published 7 Jul 2022

Maybe the most curious contradiction about fashion right now is its status as a pillar of popular culture—something that anyone can follow or even participate in, like sports—and the simultaneous obsession among the culture at large with couture, the most rarefied (and arguably outmoded) niche of the industry. Right now, Balenciaga is trending on Twitter (in large part because celebrities like Nicole Kidman and Kim Kardashian walked in the show–but more on that later this week). And much of my Instagram feed has been dominated over the past few days by dissections of the couture collections showing this week in Paris—it’s the Fall 2022 season—by armchair fashion enthusiasts. Some of these commentators have likely never even been to a fashion show, and will never be in a position to acquire a couture garment. But there’s a real passion for, uh, fashion, in terms of inquisition, analysis, and sourcing reference material. So fashion right now is democratic in reach and yet snobbish in taste. Anyone, in other words, can be a snob!

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At the level of clothing, there can be different aesthetic approaches. One of which is an exuberant, pop feeling dominated by references to previous couturiers, almost in the way that a hit songs might take a throwaway line or chorus from a 1980s hit and, through the magic of autotune, make it into something you might enjoy listening to in a barre class. Schiaparelli’s Daniel Roseberry is the kingpin of these kinds of clothes (although houses like Viktor & Rolf and brands like Moschino were doing camp gowns when memes were but a twinkle in our eyes.) His show on Monday was packed with references to the work of Christian Lacroix–and the gambit is that his many fans can comb through the collection and electrify themselves finding these callbacks, like the pouf skirt, and wide but flat-brimmed hats, and little bolero jackets with schmancey scrollwork. It’s similar to the way that television shows are created now, with bread crumbs sprinkled about to reward vigilant viewers. Everyone used to give Virgil Abloh a hard time for copying (which was misplaced criticism, I always thought), but now the point is not only to copy but to spot the reference, and celebrate it. This creates a sense of snobbism among what you might call couture’s digital spectators.

But what makes Roseberry’s work important—beyond merely interesting, which, with all those birdies and bare breasts and trompe l’oeil glamour, it certainly is—is that he has also cultivated a group of eccentrics to wear and embody his clothes, much in the way that Elsa Schiaparelli did, as the new show at Paris’s Musée des Arts Decoratifs confirms. Roseberry’s clothes may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but as attendees dressed in Schiaparelli, like Hunter Schafer, Jeremy O. Harris, Janicza Bravo, and Natasha Lyonne demonstrated, a little unsavoriness can be incredibly powerful. It also reminds us that there is creativity pulsing beneath all this business, all this capitalist claptrap. And that not everything (or every famous person) should be for everyone, and celebrities who dare to be out there, whether in the way they dress, the way they think, or the projects they pursue, deserve a wardrobe that celebrates that.