Schiaparelli Fall 2023 Ready-to-Wear Collection

“The higher you go in the stratosphere of luxury, the more basic it feels.” Daniel Roseberry was not mincing words in a preview of his first Schiaparelli ready-to-wear collection to hit the runway—make that the first Schiap ready-to-wear collection to ever hit the runway.

It’s been just over a month since the fake animal head dresses in Roseberry’s haute couture collection caused a social media conflagration. The experience, as overwhelming as it might have been, hasn’t seemed to soften his resolve. He mentioned watching the four-part documentary The Kingdom of Dreams, which chronicles the rise of LVMH and PPR (now Kering) from the late 1990s into the luxury conglomerates they are today. “Then it was raw creativity fueling the machine, now it’s the machine fueling creativity,” he said. His goal today was to make his entrée into Paris Fashion Week an “antidote to that mass feeling.”

The collection retained many of the signatures Roseberry has established in his first three years at the house, some inspired by Schiap’s codes and some by those of other Paris couturiers: the gold buttons in the shape of keyholes and body parts, the measuring tape embroidery, the cone bra detailing inset into everything from bustier tops to jean jackets. Roseberry’s own whimsical drawings were hand-painted onto nipped waist boiled coats.

The places-to-go sensibility remained as well, but no-one is wearing Schiap leggings to a hot yoga class, or doing the school run in the dark-rinse denim sets. The parkas aren’t hitting the slopes. These were lunch date, cocktails, and stepping out of the car and into the five-star hotel with the paparazzi hot on your tail clothes. Where it differed from the couture most significantly was in the fabrications. The jersey dresses, one with a keyhole on the chest and the other with miniature gold buttons marching up the torso, had an appealing ease; Roseberry called the stretch velvet of a brown halterneck dress a celebrity secret weapon: “It drinks the light.”

What delivered the most bang for the ready-to-wear buck was a strapless velvet number with the gold bijoux eyes, nose, and mouth forming a smiley face on the bodice. Call it an antidote to the classic little black dress.