Schiaparelli’s return to the future opens the ball of the Couture Week When Couture lies between the past and the future

If artistic directors are not afraid to play the nostalgia card, even using it abundantly by no longer creating but recreating what is already known, Daniel Roseberry, for the Couture FW26 collection from Schiaparelli, decided to take a leap into the future. While honoring and tracing the history of Maison Schiaparelli and especially its pioneer Elsa, the couture collection presented this morning in Paris was crafted by stepping back only to take two steps forward once on the runway. With its array of futuristic dresses, sometimes silver, sometimes metallic red, sometimes raven black (like the feathers of the bird that accompanied Cardi B in the front row), the collection realized by the American designer at the head of the House since 2019 seems focused entirely on the future—and yet, to shine, it had to take a back to the future, as its title suggests. Yet no Marty McFly-printed t‑shirts à la Balenciaga are on the agenda, only architectural, voluminous, decadent gowns.

If the robotic look of some fabrics in the collection might make us believe it draws inspiration from years to come, it is quite the opposite. But this idea of a collection plunged into the future is not owed to the Space Age of André Courrèges nor the metallic textiles of Paco Rabanne. Roseberry’s inspiration actually dates back to 1940, when Elsa Schiaparelli left her beloved Paris to travel to New York, where a promising future awaited her. A small step aboard a ship for the Italian-born creator, but a giant leap for fashion, concluding one of its revolutionary and iconic eras. A period notably marked by advances made by Schiaparelli, who constantly questioned and challenged fashion and its future. Years pass, but the era preceding Elsa’s temporary departure from Paris remains regarded as a high point of fashion, the dawn of the modern age marked by war and the promise of a future filled with success. The collection is therefore an intentional tribute not only to Elsa Schiaparelli, but also to that pivotal moment when life and art were poised to change forever, perched in a suspended instant between the end of a key era and the arrival of a new world, in a profound but beneficial mutation.

The Couture FW26 collection, however, is not just a nod to the past; it is born above all from a questioning of modern times: “Is it really possible to blur the boundary between past and future?”. With a color palette composed almost entirely of black and white, the collection feels like an old Polaroid rediscovered and cherished, symbolizing the ancient yet different in an over-digitized world. In a world without screens, without artificial intelligence and without technology, both ancient and post-futuristic, the usual hallmarks of modernism have vanished in a return to roots that feels refreshing and could even seem avant-garde, even revolutionary. While last season Schiaparelli celebrated baroque opulence, the FW26 represents a certain and decisive step toward the future. Powder pink gives way to intense black, the famous corseted lines customary to the House disappear and are replaced by a new dynamism, the idea of a future Schiaparelli presented in the past is revisited, more subtle, gentler.

Despite this new futuristic wave, Schiaparelli remains true to itself, maintaining on some of its pieces key elements of its aesthetic such as the iconographies of the keyhole and anatomy, reinterpreted through handmade ceramic elements. The collection is new, but the execution is done just as Elsa Schiaparelli did 85 years ago, particularly in the embroidery of delicate scarves decorated with silk thread polka dots. Of course, the trompe-l’oeil elements were not absent, notably featured on a silky red dress that reveals on its back, like two hidden nipples, the shape of prominent abs and a navel. While technology and artificial intelligence were banned from the runway, progress still managed to make a small appearance, as demonstrated by the jewel featured in the teaser released by the brand before unveiling its collection: a bright red necklace in the shape of a human heart, in homage to Salvador Dalí, Schiaparelli’s great friend and colleague, and his "Royal Heart," created in 1953, which magically beats in sync with our own. A rhythm that slightly increased with the arrival of the first model, wearing a black ensemble composed of a pencil skirt with pockets and Elsa Schiaparelli’s iconic "dinner" jacket, tailored and embroidered with golden details, all the way to the show’s finale performed by Alex Consani, dressed entirely in black in a long satin gown paired with a necklace referencing the "Apollo of Versailles" cape, taken from the 1938 collection inspired by astrology and the Sun King. This collection thus stands as a humble reminder that looking to the past is good, but doing so in order to step forward on the right foot is even better.