Schiaparelli Spring Summer 2026 Haute Couture “The Agony and the Ecstasy”. Story by Eleonora de Gray, Editor-in-Chief of RUNWAY MAGAZINE. Photo Courtesy: Schiaparelli / Pechuga Vintage.
Yesterday opened Paris Haute Couture Week with two major events: Dior and Schiaparelli. The stars were there—or so the press releases told us. The streets, however, told a different story. Once packed with fans, barricades brimming with shouting admirers and smartphones aloft, now sat oddly quiet. A smattering of photographers, maybe a few dozen. A handful of fans. Mostly bored.
Even the A-list arrivals seemed to glide into an unsettling silence. Jeff Bezos and his wife made their entrance, fresh off the Washington screening of the 40-million-dollar “Melania” documentary he proudly produced. Apparently, politics are too controversial—but couture? Still fair game. This year’s Met Gala host came to Paris, perhaps for fittings, perhaps for damage control. Either way, the spectacle was there. The audience? Not so much.
And then came Schiaparelli.
Daniel Roseberry titled his Spring Summer 2026 collection “The Agony and the Ecstasy.” Agony, indeed. What unfolded looked less like a celebration of Elsa’s legacy and more like a fever dream in a taxidermy museum. Bird heads as heels, clawed jackets, horned torsos, silhouettes slashed with skeletal protrusions.
This wasn’t couture flirting with surrealism. It was full-on fashion exorcism.
Yes, Elsa Schiaparelli was fascinated by creatures of the sea and sky. Yes, Picasso gifted her the “Birds in Cage” painting in 1937. And yes, she adored a good provocation. But there’s a fine line between homage and horror. Roseberry’s collection plunged headlong into the latter.
The press release spins a poetic tale: a creative awakening at the Sistine Chapel, divine agony meeting divine beauty, sculptural silhouettes born from instinct. What we got instead were birds of paradise spliced with medieval weaponry. Look after look arrived with the same message: Feel something—anything. Most did. Mostly confusion.
Take for example this look:
A feathered figure with razor-edged wings and a crystal cage crown. Stunning craftsmanship, yes. But also vaguely threatening. Couture angel? Or fallen one? The ambiguity felt less artistic, more chaotic.
Then there were the scorpion tails, the shoulder horns jutting like weaponized bones, the bodices blooming with parasite-like florals. “Infantas terribles,” Roseberry called them—part bird, part beast, part fever dream.
One can admire the atelier’s skill without endorsing the aesthetic. The hand-cut lace, the sfumato-effect neon tulle, the resin-dipped silk feathers—these are marvels of technique. But when mounted on silhouettes that evoke nightmares, the artistry gets lost in the noise.
Look here, for instance, at this monstrous spine of a gown:
What are we to feel? Awe? Fear? Pity for the model carrying that sculptural burden?
Another look—an encrusted blazer with breastplate horns—recalls less Elsa’s sense of whimsy and more a Game of Thrones side character mid-transformation.
And yet, in moments, the old Schiaparelli magic flickers. This mossy-green ballerina look, flaring like a peacock in mid-display, actually whispers elegance:
The silhouette is exaggerated, the texture lush, the tone baroque—but it still speaks the language of couture. It dazzles without alarming.
But those moments were rare.
Daniel Roseberry writes of “unchaining the imagination.” Fair. But unchained imagination without editorial constraint can become grotesque. There’s a difference between provocation and wearability, between myth and madness. Couture has always been the realm of fantasy—but it has also always flirted with desire. This? This was armor for a post-apocalyptic bird god.
We understand the urge to challenge. To shock. To resurrect Elsa’s rebellious spirit. But somewhere between the Sistine Chapel and the resin bird-beaks, the plot flew the coop.
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