On loan to The Met The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Bathing suit
Design House Schiaparelli French
Designer Elsa Schiaparelli Italian
Not on view
Elsa Schiaparelli's most engaging work reveals her witty sophistication. Her ironic, cultivated, and humorous sensibility is best reflected in her collaborations with Salvador Dali and Jean Cocteau. Whether with a shoe hat, bugs on clear plastic that appeared to be swarming on the wearer's neck, or a cellophane coat, Schiap, as she was known, loved the possibility of astonishment in fashion. Her fragrance, Shocking, summed up the playful provocation of her designs. Here, she renders the elegant line of the one-shouldered chiton in gold lamé for ostentatious bathing beauty effect. But her incorporation of Fountainbleau Hotel poolside glamour does not mute her couturier's sensibility. The bathing suit's asymmetrical cut is ingenious and complex in its seaming. As in all Schiap designs, high and low are inseparably fused.
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