Schiaparelli has been at the forefront of creative haute couture for years now. One reason for their success is their continued ability to surprise and awe audiences. And this year is no different. Last year, I covered Schiaparelli’s 2024 spring/summer collection, which drew inspiration from founder Elsa Schiaparelli’s fascination with space and creative director Daniel Roseberry’s Texas background.
This year, Roseberry’s inspiration comes from the Greek myth of Icarus. The fashion designer’s ancient inspiration builds a push and pull between old glamour and trends and modern techniques, which is seen in the silhouettes, fabrication, and styling of the collection. Roseberry stated, as Harper’s Bazaar reports, “I’m so tired of everyone constantly equating modernity with simplicity: Can’t the new also be worked, be baroque, be extravagant? Has our fixation on what looks or feels modern become a limitation? Has it cost us our imagination?” His inspiration speaks to this idea, as according to Vogue, he was inspired by Icarus’s ambition to fly higher, and in turn, Roseberry looked to push haute couture further (Mower).
Look 1 in the collection from Schiaparelli
The collection is styled in the colors of the Schiaparelli house, employing a mostly neutral palette of blacks and cream offset by bursts of gold. Roseberry translates the flight of Icarus into the movement of the fabrications with flowing looks that move almost independently from the models. Instead of the normal feather that one might use when inspired by the flight of Icarus, Roseberry brings the look to the modern age with fringe to give the movement that feathers often lack in fashion.
Look 6 in the collection from Schiaparelli
Look 29 in the collection from Schiaparelli
The looks evolve from using a soft cream color palette at the beginning of the show to adding more black as the show continues, making the details in lighter colors pop, while also depicting the tragic element of the flight of Icarus. Midway in the collection, the looks reach a monochromatic moment of black before returning to lighter golds and creams to end the collection almost as it started.
Look 14 in the collection from Schiaparelli
Look 15 in the collection from Schiaparelli
The collection from the first to the last look is obviously Schiaparelli, and yet with each show, Roseberry brings something new to the fashion house. His innovative use of fabric manipulation brings traditional silhouettes to another level. The exaggerated features, like padding in the hips and larger-than-practical skirts, bring the subtleness of his techniques to the haute couture level.
Look 32 in the collection from Schiaparelli
The end of the collection brings techniques not seen at the beginning of the show. The color palette is the largest representation of the story in the collection, while more subtle elements, such as the fabric choices and silhouettes, speak to a cohesive collection, but not a standardized collection. Schiaparelli is a fashion house renowned for having stand-out pieces in a collection while toeing the line of cohesion. The collection starts covered up and ends with the illusion of seeing the boning of the dress as the fabric almost slides down the model, calling to mind the moment when Icarus’s feathers melted off his wax wings.
Look 31 in the collection from Schiaparelli
Overall, Roseberry continues to awe and inspire through his haute couture collections. Pushing what we think as modern past overdone minimalism, he shows how the power of the modern age lies in the abundant resources at creators’ fingertips. His creativity is clear in the variety of fabrications and silhouettes in the collection, and yet at its core, the collection stays true to Schiaparelli. He looks at the story of Icarus as more than a mournful tale, representing it instead as a show of ambition, which translates beautifully in the collection.
Look 33 in the collection from Schiaparelli