The Victoria and Albert Museum’s first-ever UK exhibition dedicated to Schiaparelli, titled Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art, has arrived as a timely statement on the state of high fashion. Running from March to November 2026, the expansive show gathers over four hundred objects that span the 1920s to the present day. Elsa Schiaparelli’s legendary collaborations with Salvador Dalí, including the Skeleton Dress and Tears Dress, stand alongside contemporary creations by creative director Daniel Roseberry. The display makes clear that fashion has always thrived when it refuses to stay practical.

Emil Larsson

Today this impulse feels newly urgent. After years of screen saturation and algorithm-driven trends, luxury labels are retreating into dreamscapes. Schiaparelli’s current collections, with their sculptural gold body parts, exaggerated forms and theatrical silhouettes, treat clothing as pure surrealist sculpture. Other houses follow similar paths, producing garments that prioritise wonder and emotional intensity over everyday wearability. These pieces are designed to be photographed, contemplated and remembered rather than simply worn.

Giovanni Giannoni / Courtesy of Patrimoine Schiaparelli, Paris

By fusing haute couture techniques with radical artistic ideas, designers create experiences that feel tactile and otherworldly. In an age of constant digital noise, such work offers a rare form of resistance. Schiaparelli’s legacy, now fully visible at the V&A, proves that the most powerful fashion still dares to invent impossible worlds and invite us to inhabit them, if only for a moment.