If we say Rosa, we say ELSA SCHIAPARELLI to whom we pay homage with the help of our friend NICOLETTA DE MENNA who draws an interesting portrait... good reading in pink!
It is impossible to talk about pink without considering one of the brightest and most vibrant ranges of this shade, Schiaparelli pink. This colour is actually a mixture of red, green and blue, resulting in a very intense shade close to magenta. The definition of Schiaparelli pink appeared in the fashion world in 1937 when designer Elsa Schiaparelli launched her perfume Shocking de Schiaparelli. "Schiap" (she liked to talk about herself in the third person using this nickname) wanted everything about this perfume to be memorable, shocking: so she asked sculptress Leonor Fini to design her a bottle in the shape of Mae West, a very disturbing American actress who was very popular at the time, and for the packaging she chose a strong and vibrant shade of pink which from then on would be known as shocking pink or even Schiaparelli pink.
Elsa Luisa Maria Schiaparelli was born in Rome, in Palazzo Corsini, in 1890; her father Celestino came from a family of Piedmontese intellectuals and came to the capital to teach Arabic language and literature at the University, but was also the first librarian of the Accademia dei Lincei. His mother belonged to a noble Neapolitan family.
From an early age Elsa showed a strong inclination towards all forms of art, of whatever kind, which was not particularly pleasing to her family who, as we have seen, had a solid but traditional cultural background. To try to contain her restlessness, she was sent to a very strict boarding school in Switzerland, from which, however, she soon found a way out by moving to London where she married and had a daughter, Gogò.
Short stays on the Côte d'Azur and in New York followed, and then the marriage was lost and in 1922 she arrived in Paris, alone with her daughter. Paris at that time was the most imaginative community of artists and intellectuals in Europe, the environment that suited her, the one she had dreamed of all her life. Elsa felt at home in that world and put down roots, thus an Italian transplanted and definitively settled in Paris, the first perhaps in the world of fashion as we understand it today.
At the beginning, through Francis and Gaby Picabia, her host friends, she easily entered artistic circles; the cultural and social depth of her family of origin opened all doors to her. She first approached fashion with Paul Poiret, who initially made her his model/muse, even though Elsa's physiognomy was decidedly unconventional. Poiret said that Schiaparelli could wear anything in an unrepeatable and sublime way because of her strong personality, and Elsa dressed by Poiret began to attend all the events in the French capital and make a name for herself. She later became his pupil and it was then that her true love affair with fashion began, as she realised that she could use it to express her passion for art and turn clothes into living artistic manifestos.
This conviction was reinforced in 1934 when he met Salvator Dali, another brilliant and unconventional personality. The two had many things in common, one of which was a desire to amaze; complicity broke out and they decided to break down the boundaries that until then had separated Art from Fashion, giving rise to a season of memorable creations.
We could talk about Schiaparelli at length and in different areas, but this time we will stick to the theme of colour, "her" pink which was defined as shocking in the 1930s thanks to the perfume, or hot pink in the 1950s (do you remember Marilyn Monroe's dress in the film "Men Prefer Blondes"?), or even extravagant pink in the 1960s. As Helen Varley wrote in her book COLORS, it is a shade that "appears in the vanguard of more than one youth revolution". This definition, which practically consecrates Schiaparelli pink as the living manifesto colour of many new artistic currents, would surely have appealed to her.
Finally, a curiosity: Marisa Berenson, an American model and actress with a strong personality, is the daughter of Gogo and therefore the granddaughter of Elsa Schiaparelli. In this case we can certainly say that good blood does not lie!
Nicoletta de Menna
who has always been passionate about modern and contemporary history, and whose main theme is clothes and the changes in costume.
@nicoletta_de_menna Facebook and Instagram
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