Oct 19, 2026 · 40 min · 13 segments
Elsa Schiaparelli (Schiap) is the quintessential weird art lady. As a self-identified “weird art lady” I felt called to learn about how she cultivated her craft out of seemingly nothing but…
GabrielleHost
So to broadly summarize the life of Elsa Schiaparelli, she is an Italian-born French designer who created and managed Maison Schiaparelli from 1927 to 1950.
Throughout her tenure, she created out-there pieces, often aligning with the surrealist art movement.
From trompe-l'œil sweaters to lobsters on dresses, she also adopted a fascination for perfumery and jewels, which ended up doing her a great deal of good in terms of business.
During her later stages of life, she tried to pass on the Maison to a lucky inheritor, though that did go south and ultimately the shop closed in her lifetime.
That's because luckily, thank you capitalism, investors saw a bright future in the brand and revived it to what we know and love today.
Elsa Luisa Giovanna Maria Schiaparelli, go ahead and shout out Wikipedia for never failing to provide the longest form of somebody's government name, was born on September 10th, 1890.
Some of his areas of study include the Islamic world in the Middle Ages, as well as he's also an authority on Sanskrit and a curator of medieval manuscripts.
Oh yeah, and also he's the dean at Sapienza University where Elsa would later study philosophy.
Her uncle, an astronomer, Giovanni Schiaparelli, discovered Canali or the Martian Canals.
As you can imagine, the Schiaparelli family was an interesting bunch, influencing a creative path and imagination in Elsa.
In her early years, she loved to express her art and creativity via poetry, prompting a volume of poems called Arthusa.
The contents of these poems were deemed so graphic and alarming to her parents that they ended up sending her to a convent in German Switzerland.
I sure as heck tried to find them, but they seem to have been scrubbed from the internet.
Scap in her autobiography, Shocking Life, of which I will reference many, many, many times.
So to broadly summarize the life of Elsa Schiaparelli, she is an Italian-born French designer who created and managed Maison Schiaparelli from 1927 to 1950.
Throughout her tenure, she created out-there pieces, often aligning with the surrealist art movement.
From trompe-l'œil sweaters to lobsters on dresses, she also adopted a fascination for perfumery and jewels, which ended up doing her a great deal of good in terms of business.
During her later stages of life, she tried to pass on the Maison to a lucky inheritor, though that did go south and ultimately the shop closed in her lifetime.
That's because luckily, thank you capitalism, investors saw a bright future in the brand and revived it to what we know and love today.
Elsa Luisa Giovanna Maria Schiaparelli, go ahead and shout out Wikipedia for never failing to provide the longest form of somebody's government name, was born on September 10th, 1890.
Some of his areas of study include the Islamic world in the Middle Ages, as well as he's also an authority on Sanskrit and a curator of medieval manuscripts.
Oh yeah, and also he's the dean at Sapienza University where Elsa would later study philosophy.
Her uncle, an astronomer, Giovanni Schiaparelli, discovered Canali or the Martian Canals.
As you can imagine, the Schiaparelli family was an interesting bunch, influencing a creative path and imagination in Elsa.
In her early years, she loved to express her art and creativity via poetry, prompting a volume of poems called Arthusa.
The contents of these poems were deemed so graphic and alarming to her parents that they ended up sending her to a convent in German Switzerland.
I sure as heck tried to find them, but they seem to have been scrubbed from the internet.
Scap in her autobiography, Shocking Life, of which I will reference many, many, many times.
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