To say that no one is doing haute couture today quite like Schiaparelli would be something of an understatement. This is the brand, after all, putting Bella Hadid in a pair of golden-lung branches for the 2021 Cannes Film Festival and wrapping Beyoncé in layers of leather finished in gold-fingernailed gloves at the Grammys that same year.
Collection after collection, Texas-born creative director Daniel Roseberry has proven he possesses the design chops to follow in the clever footsteps of brand founder Elsa Schiaparelli—who was known for collaborating with artists like Man Ray and Salvador Dalí on her own headline-making surrealist designs—and the spring 2023 haute couture runway is yet another feather in his cap. This season, Roseberry took inspiration from Dante’s “The Divine Comedy.”
“What appealed to me in the Inferno wasn’t just the theatrics of Dante’s creation—it was how perfect a metaphor it provided for the torment that every artist or creative person experiences when we sit before the screen or the sketchpad or the dress form, when we have that moment in which we’re shaken by what we don’t know,” he wrote in the show notes, calling the spring 2023 haute couture collection his “homage to doubt.”
If that sounds menacing, the end results were anything but. Roseberry played with “the slippery, house-of-mirrors quality” of Dante’s work through the use of surprising materials: In the place of sparkling paillettes, he used leather-covered tin, and velvets were hand-painted with pigments that change color based on your perspective, like the wings of a butterfly. For those former classics majors out there, Roseberry went the extra mile and created three looks for each of the nine circles of hell, “a nod to Dante’s sense of organization.”
Of course, the real scene-stealers here were the trio of looks inspired by animals. The Leopard (on Shalom Harlow, representing lust), the Lion (on Irina Shayk, representing pride) and the She-Wolf (Naomi Campbell, representing avarice) were each ripped directly from Dante’s “Inferno” and are practically made to go viral—just ask Kylie Jenner, who wore the Lion gown to sit front row. (How very Leo of her.)
But the quality of the faux-taxidermy pieces—the House of Schiaparelli emphasizes that each was constructed entirely of man-made materials—is so incredible that each one managed to upstage Kardashians and supermodels alike. Despite being made of mere foam and resin, covered in wool and silk faux-fur, it wouldn’t be all that surprising to hear one release a roar.
Roseberry’s real genius, however, is the mix of the fantastic and the wearable: For every look featuring a giant hammered copper chestplate, for example, there’s a sumptuous velvet gown that stuns in its simplicity. The atelier at Schiaparelli is clearly packed with expert tailors who can execute Roseberry’s vision to perfection, no matter the material—whether it’s a quilted coat or a beaded bolero jacket.
This range all but guarantees that Schiaparelli will maintain its status as a red carpet favorite for celebrities looking to land themselves on best-dressed lists. For every Doja Cat willing to commit to a full-blown moment—how early does one need to wake up to get covered in 30,000 red crystals?—there’s another who's just as thrilled to be photographed in the nude silk slip dress.
With a packed red carpet schedule on the horizon (Grammys! Oscars! Cannes!) Hollywood's biggest stylists had better be prepared for stiff competition getting their clients in the Schiaparelli spring 2023 haute couture collection.
