Two important London exhibitions have just opened, both celebrating influential female designers in fashion and textiles.
Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art at the V&A Museum (until 8 November 2026) is vast and brilliant, a survey of the incredible originality and collaborative spirit of Elsa Schiaparelli. Displaying clothing, fragrance, jewellery, accessories, furniture and costume design from the 1920s to the 1950s, highlights of her audacious, art-leaning designs include fur cuffs, egg minaudieres, a hat that thinks it’s a shoe (designed with Salvador Dali) and an evening coat designed with Jean Cocteau’s illustrative facial profiles that double as a vase of pink silk roses (above).
While Schiaparelli may be famous for such surrealist statement pieces, there are also examples of more everyday wear, such as trousers for women (unusual at the time) and the early female-empowerment suits with ample ‘cash and carry pockets’ to replace the need for a handbag during wartime. I also love the pair of golden-winged tortoiseshell hair combs and the room full of sculptural buttons.
My other main highlights are the huge 1953 collage of Place Vendome and 1940s perfume ad illustrations by Marcel Vertès (can’t believe I’m not familiar with his work). The collage demands a good few minutes of close inspection to spot fun recurring motifs like lips, eyes and the hand-drawn Schiaparelli signature (I never noticed before that the S and C are intertwined, like two other famous designer initials).
The perfume room also shows how innovative Schiaparelli was with her perfume bottle designs – decades ahead of her time. Again, she enlisted her artist friends to collaborate on packaging, such as the example below for Le Roy Soleila limited edition of only 2,000 Baccarat crystal sun-stoppered bottles designed with Salvador Dali.
The show is supported by Schiaparelli the brand, so there’s a fair amount of modern-day input from current creative director Daniel Roseberry’s collections. So faithful is his interpretation of Elsa’s codes and ideas, it’s sometimes hard to separate his contemporary offerings from some of her circa 100-year-old designs. That’s not necessarily a criticism, just an observation.
Fashion designers were in constant dialogue with artists in that era, which possibly led to more risk-taking and innovation. In fact, Schiaparelli emphatically considered dress designing as an art which in itself is quite telling. Today, the reality is that designers are more concerned with the bottom line and keeping investors happy at the expense of risk and creativity.
On to Susan Collier and Sarah Campbell at the Fashion & Textile Museum (until 13 September 2026). Spring is the perfect time to launch this assault of Colour! Pattern! Print! as the title so fittingly sums up. From the first display recreating the hands-on textile studio, sketchbooks, poster paints, brushes and swatches to fabulous room sets, vitrines of Liberty prints, an early Yves Saint Laurent ready-to-wear design, and yards and yards of painterly repeats and florals, the work of sisters Susan Collier and Sarah Campbell is immediately energising and uplifting.
Sarah Campbellwho is still prolifically producing work for brands like Anthropologie and West Elm told me about the importance (and sheer joy!) of the physicality of painting with actual brushes and paint in the digital age. She’s someone who is constantly informed by nature and movement; designing with a cursor just isn’t as fulfilling.
Witnessing the breadth of Collier Campbell’s output, it’s hard to think of a known print designer from the last 30 to 40 years whose work is as recognisable as theirs. Since the 1990s, we’ve been trained to think in terms of minimalism, quiet luxury and Scandi cool, with shades of taupe, navy and grey marl the signifier of (that much debated subject) ‘good taste’.
But with the latest season of international fashion houses championing optimistic gouache colours as a foil to the world’s otherwise gloomy outlook, I wonder if a new generation of fashion designers might be encouraged to embrace hand-painted and printed textiles again, if not as a somewhat radical act against the A.I. slopification of design, then for the pure, messy, unpredictable fun of it.
WORDS: Disneyrollergirl / Navaz Batliwalla
IMAGES: Schiaparelli evening coat designed by Elsa Schiaparelli and Jean Cocteau 1937 London, England; Schiaparelli egg-shaped leather, chrome and enamel minaudiere 1935/Disneyrollergirl; Jean Cocteau x Elsa Schiaparelli embroidered jacket/Disneyrollergirl; illustration by Jean Cocteau/Disneyrollergirl; Schiaparelli hair combs//Disneyrollergirl; Collage by Marcel Vertès x2//Disneyrollergirl; Perfume illustrations by Marcel Vertès x3//Disneyrollergirl; Schiaparelli Le Roy Soleil bottle designed with Salvador Dali //Disneyrollergirl; Fashion & Textile Museum Colour! Pattern! Print! x 6/Disneyrollergirl
NOTE: Most images are digitally enhanced. Some posts use affiliate links and PR samples. Please read my privacy and cookies policy here.
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