The most extraordinary fashion designer of the twentieth century is probably not a name you would instantly recognize. Between the world wars of the twentieth century, Elsa Schiaparelli, designer, couturiere and owner of a fashion house that carried her name, revolutionised the way women dress.
She collaborated with the likes of Jean Cocteau and Salvador Dali and her clothes adorned the rich and famous across Europe and the Americas.
The first ever biography of this Italian couturiere is released this month. Simply entitled Elsa Schiaparelli: A Biography, It’s the twelfth book for award-winning author Meryle Secrest, who's earlier works included the Pulitzer Prize nominated "Being Bernard Berenson" and the acclaimed biographies of Frank Lloyd Wright, Salvador Dali to name check but a few.
Schiaparelli is perhaps Secrest's most personally admired subject, given her own personal experience in the fashion industry, her love for clothing design and a great story. A very busy Meryle Secrest was kind enough to answer a short Q&A for IBR the week of the books release.
IBR: You could argue that Schiaparelli is the least known or most obscure individual you have written about, what was the genesis of you wanting to write this biography?
Meryle Secrest: Anyone who goes into writing biography faces the problem of re-introducing his or her subject. Unless you want to write about a living subject which I have largely avoided. Nobody ever likes what you write about them and once the family of my subject worked very hard to kill the book and largely succeeded. In fact Elsa Schiaparelli was once the most famous fashion designer in the world, more famous than Chanel. Today, in the fashion world she is rightly seen as one of the greats.
IBR: Was Schiaparelli a woman way ahead of her time?
Meryle Secrest: She was mostly right for her time in an uncanny way. She came along in a second wave of feminism, designing clothes for women who were chic, confident, and self assured enough to wear outlandish but interesting clothes.
IBR: Was the business of couture a serious pursuit between the wars or was it seen as a luxury or folly that only the rich could afford?
Meryle Secrest: It was both. She dressed prominent women as any designer tries to do. But her main market was big dept. stores in the U.S. like Lord and Taylor and Saks. At her height she had 600 employees and turned out 10,000 garments a year.
IBR: Being a “fashion label” requires a certain degree of self confidence, was Schiaparelli a self confident self promoter?
Meryle Secrest: Yes she had daring and was astonishingly inventive. Vogue called her business "the house of ideas."
IBR: Was it a difficult book to research given the time since she passed in 1973?
Meryle Secrest: No more than any other! I had a lovely time because her life was a tabula rasa - the first full biography, so everything I found, I used. I discovered her husband was not a count, as her daughter claimed, but a smalltime con artist who came to a bad end. That the FBI followed her movements during WW2 and she was suspected of being a spy.
IBR: In your research into Schiaperelli did you find many parallels to modern world of high fashion, have the relationships between the designers and consumers of haute couture really changed that much over the years?
Meryle Secrest: I think it has. Less and less women can afford the astronomical prices, so the shows are usually things no one can wear and the real money is in handbags.
IBR: Why do you think that Coco Chanel became the fashion icon and Elsa Schiaparelli drifted into obscurity?
Meryle Secrest: There are a lot of reasons, but, primarily, Chanel had an aggressive business team behind her and Schiaparelli didn't.
IBR: What was Schiaparelli’s legacy?
Meryle Secrest: She was more multi-faceted than anyone else you can think of and she somehow invented clothes that were not only unusual, witty, even slyly subversive, BUT also practical and becoming. It was marvelous, like a magic trick and I dont think anyone has put all that together since.
IBR: Do you think the latest fashion house that uses her name would be a business she would recognise and feel comfortable with?
Meryle Secrest: It is a good question but I don't know the answer. I personally don't think they have got it quite right yet.
IBR: How do you go about finding the people that interest you enough to want to write their biography?
Meryle Secrest: Another good question. It's hard to do, because you as a writer have to say you personally can bring a special perspective to the subject. Then it has to be someone your audience would like to know more about, about whom there is something new to say. I wouldn't touch a subject like Chanel, who has been ridiculously over-studied, the way Virginia Woolf was once, or Elizabeth Taylor. It is boring just to rewrite other people. Last of all, there has to be enough new material. Actually it is so hard to do, lots of people stumble on a cache of new material and only write that one book. In the case of Schiaparelli, I saw her as an artist, and art is a special interest of mine. Plus, I worked early in my career for a fashion house, and have always designed and made my own clothes. Here's another thing. You are going to spend a lot of time with this person so you had better be enthusiastic and admiring. Certainly true for me in Schiaparelli's case.
IBR: Is there another project in the works?
Meryle Secrest: Help! I'm still trying to promote this one!
Links
Publications
Meryle Secrest (1974) Between Me and Life: A Biography of Romaine Brooks.
Double Day: ISBN-10: 0385034695
Meryle Secrest (1979) Being Bernard Berenson.
Penguin Books: ISBN-10: 0140056971
Meryle Secrest (1984) Kenneth Clark: A Biography.
Henry Holt & Co: ISBN-10: 0030540666
Meryle Secrest (1986) Salvador Dalí, 1986.
Plume: ISBN-10: 0525483349
Meryle Secrest (1992) Frank Lloyd Wright: A Biography.
University of Chicago Press: ISBN-10: 0226744140
Meryle Secrest (1994) Leonard Bernstein: A Life.
Knopf: ISBN-10: 0679407316
Meryle Secrest (1998) Stephen Sondheim: A Life.
Delta: ISBN-10: 0385334125
Meryle Secrest (2001) Somewhere for Me: A Biography of Richard Rodgers.
Applause Theatre & Cinema Books: ISBN-10: 1557835810
Meryle Secrest (2004) Duveen: A Life in Art.
University Of Chicago Press: ISBN-10: 0226744159
Meryle Secrest (2007) Shoot the Widow: Adventurers of a Biographer in Search of Her Subject.
Knopf: ASIN: B0052FF9UO
Meryle Secrest (2011) Modigliani: A Life.
Knopf: ASIN: B004C43EY4
Meryle Secrest (2014) Elsa Schiaparelli: A Biography
Knopf: ISBN-10: 030770159X
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