Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Elsa Schiaparelli (1890-1973) was the premier style arbiter of the 1930s - a favourite designer for women who made the best-dressed list, of female sports heroes, and of film and theatre actresses. This book takes a comprehensive look at the work of this startling and innovative Paris fashion designer. Shocking explores the Italian-born designer's career from its modernist beginnings in the 1920s to the closing of her salon in 1954. relationship with the American fashion industry, the foundation of her great success. She also addresses how Schiaparelli's early designs were acclaimed for the architectural quality of her silhouettes and her use of unconventional materials. After 1935 the designer's collections took on a new identity, partly from her close relationship with the Parisian artistic community, which included Man Ray, Salvador Dali, Jean Cocteau, and Alberto Giacometti. and accessories, this book also includes contemporary photos of her designs by such key fashion photographers as Horst and Cecil Beaton and sketches and stills from the films and plays with which she was associated. Together the text and illustrations celebrate a masterful designer who defined dressmaking as an art rather than a profession.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Innovative, daring, and even shocking, Italian-born Paris designer Elsa Schiaparelli (1890-1973) was the preferred fashion designer to the stars of ballet, theater, opera, royalty, high society, female sports heroes, and everyday modern women from 1927 until 1954. She pushed the envelope of acceptable women's fashion, casual wear, and accessories while creating an international following for her signature trompe l'oeil bow-knot sweaters, culottes, padded shoulders, and exposed plastic zippers. In brief essays, Blum (curator of costumes and textiles, Philadelphia Museum of Art) chronicles the design career of this remarkable woman. Organized chronologically as well as thematically, the book serves as the catalog of an exhibition of Schiaparelli's creations showing at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through January 4, 2004. The detailed illustrations and drawings (more than 300 in color and black-and-white) highlight the dynamic range of her creations, from the lawn tennis skirt of Lili de Alvarez to the surrealist costumes photographed by Man Ray and Cecil Beaton, among others. Also featured is a complete listing of the films and theatrical productions Schiaparelli costumed. A welcome addition to collections focusing on design, decorative arts, and fashion.-Stephen Allan Patrick, East Tennessee State Univ. Libs., Johnson City (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

Surrealist fashion designer Schiaparelli (1890-1973) gifted 71 of her own designs to an installation that Marcel Duchamp put together in 1942. In this exhaustive overview of Schiaparelli's design career, Blum presents that Duchamp collection (which now resides at the Philadelphia Museum of Art), along with 88 models and 5,800 original sketches donated by the designer to the Musee de la Mode et du Textile in Paris. Representing pre- and post-war designs, the book mixes new color photos of garments with documentary and fashion photos from Schiaparelli's lifetime. Blum, the Philadelphia Museum's curator of costume and textiles, organizes her work chronologically and thematically. She opens with the Roman-born Schiaparelli's first big success, a 1927 bowknot sweater that became one of her most copied designs, and ends with Schiaparelli's designs from the '50s, which includes a pair of sunglasses with the lenses trimmed with long blue eyelashes. This beautifully designed, large-format book with 306 illustrations would make a wonderful gift for anyone interested in the glamour of early 20th-century fashion. (Oct.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

CHOICE Review

The work of Schiaparelli, one of the premier fashion designers of the 1930s and 1940s, is showcased in this book, published to coincide with an exhibit of the same name at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The garments shown are those donated to this museum by Schiaparelli, as well as those loaned from the Musee de la Mode et du Textile in Paris. Blum, curator of costume and textiles, provides an extensive overview of Schiaparelli's design career and contributions to fashion. The book is arranged both chronologically and thematically and is extensively and beautifully illustrated with photographs of the garments, as well as original sketches from the House of Schiaparelli, fashion illustrations for department store advertisements and fashion magazines, movie stills, and contemporary works from major 20th-century artists. This book is accompanied by a stylistic and historical chronology, a list of plays and films costumed by Schiaparelli, as well as a bibliography and sources-consulted list. A comprehensive, well-researched, and superbly illustrated resource about a fashion designer whose influence is still seen today in the work of contemporary designers. ^BSumming Up: Highly recommended. All levels. M. Fusich California State University, Fresno