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Two days before Schiaparelli’s third ready-to-wear show, the house’s couture salon on Place Vendôme is buzzing with people. Under the gildings, there’s music and creative director Daniel Roseberry lights some of his incense from Santa Fe. “The vibe is very important for the fittings,” he says.
Music comes from a playlist on his phone, which includes Troye Sivan and a Chic remix by Dimitri from Paris. “People are really tired by now and disco is really the only thing that can save you at a certain point,” he notes.
He exudes serenity, a far cry from the stereotype of the hysteric designer. “I’m fairly calm before the show,” he admits. “It’s not my favourite part of the job because no matter how organised, how prepared you are, three days before the show, it’s like a freight train going a million miles an hour. So the adrenaline kicks in but I feel really good,” he says.
The American designer has held the creative director role at Schiaparelli for five years. Under his watch, the house founded by Elsa Schiaparelli in 1927 and relaunched in 2014, became known for its stunning, sculpted couture red carpet looks. “There were key moments [in the ascent]. We saw a tipping point during the Covid time with Beyoncé’s black leather dress at the Grammys in 2021 and Lady Gaga’s voluminous gown for Joe Biden’s inauguration, also in 2021,” says PR guru Lucien Pagès, who has been working with Roseberry since his beginnings at Schiaparelli.
When Schiaparelli introduced ready-to-wear last March, industry observers wondered whether the brand’s sophistication and extravagance could translate without losing its cachet. The first ready-to-wear collection “retained many of the signatures Roseberry has established” in couture, as Vogue Runway noted. “No one is wearing Schiap leggings to a hot yoga class, or doing the school run in the dark-rinse denim sets,” wrote Nicole Phelps, global director of Vogue Business and Vogue Runway. With the second collection, Roseberry “[built] the house’s ready-to-wear identity”.
This season is a further distillation of that identity: “When you close your eyes and you think about the house, and you think about the Schiaparelli woman, you need to be able to think about the everyday-ness of the brand as well. Not just the extraordinary moments,” Roseberry says. The show is set to take place at Pavillon Vendôme, which marks a shift after showing his first two ready-to-wear collections in couture salons.
“It’s not about changing the perception from a couture house. It’s about adding the layer of ready-to-wear to the way people understand, or think about, or fantasise about Schiaparelli,” he adds.
In the salon where the fittings are taking place, there are tables filled with accessories — a key focus for the brand — including a necklace inspired by the moon cycle in onyx, new tote bags, and below the tables, the brand’s signature cowboy boots and measuring tape sandals. “We’ve got a whole new range of bags that are just going to be growing and growing,” Roseberry says.
A model comes in wearing a rib turtleneck and rib pencil skirt that has a leather appliqué on top. “We are expanding the knitwear,” explains Roseberry. Another wears a black gabardine day dress that’s slashed to expose the lining. The collection is peppered with variations of blazers and trousers, and eveningwear “with both our founder’s beloved iconographies (the anatomy, the measuring tape, the keyhole) and my beloved Americanisms (fringe, buckles and denim)”, as Roseberry writes in the show notes. This season, he worked with American stylist Malina Joseph Gilchrist for the first time.
The creative process differs between ready-to-wear and couture, Roseberry says, starting with his inspiration. “The couture comes from a really personal place. The ready-to-wear is really built around the women who are in my life; the women that I’m surrounded by,” he says. The development and the production are different, too. “We make the ready-to-wear in Italy, whereas the couture is made upstairs.”
Still, attention to detail is applied to both. “Can we pin the jacket up to where we said?” Roseberry tells Vanessa Bellanger, director of collections, pointing to the model. Turning to me, he says: “The look is a lightweight faux crocodile leather jacket and skirt. It’s the first fitting so we’re going to make it perfect. It has anatomy, it has something kind of like a sickening version of Belle de Jour, you know?”
Outsized impact
Despite it being a relatively small house, the Schiaparelli shows have consistently made more impact than those of some megabrands. The latest was attended by Zendaya, Hunter Schafer and Jennifer Lopez; and featured a robot baby, photos of which went viral, making Schiaparelli the second top-performing brand at couture week in January in terms of social media impact, according to Launchmetrics (behind Dior, but ahead of Chanel and Maison Margiela). Schiaparelli ranked first during the SS23 couture season, turbocharged by Doja Cat, Kylie Jenner and the social media debate over those fake animal heads.
“To break through the noise and captivate audience attention, brands need to create ‘made-for-content’ moments that seamlessly merge their distinct perspective with the ambassador’s persona — and Schiaparelli has mastered this art,” says Alison Bringé, chief marketing officer at Launchmetrics.
Celebrity endorsement remains a cornerstone of the brand’s success. Schiaparelli has seen a strong awards season so far, dressing Taylor Swift at the Grammys in early February, and Margot Robbie at the SAG awards. “Celebrities really value the sketches Daniel makes for them. They see in him an artist and an alter ego,” says Pagès.
Pagès describes Roseberry — who previously spent 10 years at Thom Browne, latterly as head of design — as “very grounded”. Villa Eugénie founder Étienne Russo who has been producing his ready-to-wear shows and his latest couture show, corroborates: “He is gentle and calm, extremely pleasant to work with and very precise.”
Unusually for the creative chief of a storied couture house, Roseberry wants Schiaparelli to feel accessible. A videographer joins us in the studio. “He has been in every fitting that we have done, capturing everything.” Roseberry explains. “The goal was to open the door so that people could see the creative process. I think that’s what we’ve done here, really invite people in. Students really love getting to see the process. I feel so lucky to be in this role so for me, there’s a generosity that I want to have about showing people how this happens so that people can dream that it could happen for them.”
Some of the footage is used for social media content. Roseberry is a natural on camera. “I used to be shy but this job beat it out of me,” he says.
At Schiaparelli, backstage is also “relatively chill”, Roseberry says. “I don’t like the stress of the backstage. I normally disassociate a little bit. I let the team kind of do it. And I’ll come out before the girls go and check the looks,” he explains. And how does he typically feel after a show? “Empty, because you give the collection away and that’s pretty much it. Literally within days, I’ll start thinking of the next season.”
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