Fashion
Schiaparelli & Prada: MET Gala 2012
On May 7th, 2012, celebrities from all over flocked to New York City to gather for one of fashion’s biggest nights at the Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute Gala. Every year the museum chooses two designers to honor in an exhibit that is on display May through August. This year the institute chose to honor designers Elsa Schiaparelli and Miuccia Prada. The “Impossible Interview” in a Vanity Fair magazine from the 1930’s inspires the exhibit. The exhibition features conversations between the designers and suggests new ideas from their innovative pieces of work. The exhibition shows 100 designs and 40 accessories by Schiaparelli from the late 1920’s to the early 1950’s and by Prada from the late 1980’s to present day. The exhibit is featured in seven theme galleries: Waist Up/Waist Down, Ugly Chic, Hard Chic, Naïf Chic, The Classical Body, The Exotic Body, and The Surreal Body.
Though these are both names that anyone in the fashion industry would know, not many people know the people behind the famous names. Elsa Schiaparelli was born in Italy in 1890. She studied philosophy at the University of Rome and had a luxurious life, given to her by her parents. After graduating college, she traveled to New York City and Paris. It was while she was in Paris that she began making her own clothes and, with encouragement from French designer Paul Poiret, decided to create her own fashion line. Her first major clothing item was knitwear and was featured in Vogue magazine. Although Schiaparelli’s biggest rival was Coco Chanel, and Chanel is more of a remembered name, Schiaparelli is still a well-known name amongst the fashion world. Schiaparelli’s biggest legacy was bringing playfulness to fashion and a sense of “anything goes.” She loved to play with colors, patterns, textures, and used new technologies to develop her ideas. Some of her fashion innovations we still use
today, such as wearing jackets with evening dresses and creating the first clothes with visible zippers. Schiaparelli was also known for collaborating with famous artists of her time, such as Salvador Dali, to create new fabric patterns. Although she is not an extremely well known name, her timeless creations definitely left a lasting impression on the fashion world. The other designer the exhibition features is Miuccia Prada. Born in Milan in 1949, she is the youngest granddaughter of Marion Prada. She graduated from college with a PhD in political science. In 1978 she took over her grandfather’s business of manufacturing leather bags, a company established by her grandfather in 1913. In 1985, Prada had her first fashion hit when she designed a line of black nylon handbags that instantly caught on among women. In 1989, she created her first ready-to-wear women’s line, followed by men’s wear in 1995. In 1992, Prada introduced Mui Mui, a less expensive women’s wear line that was inspired by Prada’s personal wardrobe and her nickname. Prada currently has about 250 stores in 65 countries. Although these designers come from different decades and one is more famous than the other, they are pretty similar in some areas. The area in which they are the most similar is focusing on the women’s silhouette. They both created lines and angles that would really accentuate a woman’s body. Prada and Schiaparelli were also among the first to create a menswear look for women. They loved using color, patterns and textures to make their designs stand out from their competitors. The exhibit is a fabulous collection of their most famous clothing pieces and is a wonderful reflection of these designers. The exhibit will be on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City from May 10th through August 19th. Written by Audrey Lisle