Surrealism blazed a path little by little in the visual culture of the era, notably through the pages of magazines like Vogue or Harper’s Bazaar, who’s illustrations echoed the direct ties that would forevermore bind art and fashion, and of which Elsa Schiaparelli – a pioneer in the genre – was the most illustrious representative.
The “tears” dress, designed at the dawning of WWII, was presented within the “Le Cirque” collection in 1938, evoking a fecund dialogue with surrealist artists, notably Dali with whom she shared bonds of friendship. This “mourning dress”, accompanied by a long veil, was directly inspired by one of Dali’s paintings where a young woman is pictured wearing what remains of a tight dress, ripped to shreds of fabric: Three young surrealist women holding in their arms the skins of an orchestra (1936).
This long dress, made of light blue silk crepe (that’s become even lighter since) gives the impression, with a trompe-l’oeil effect, that pieces of the fabric are torn and hanging off. The confusion is complete: does this print intend to evoke a skinned human body with slabs of flesh hanging from it? Is this dress the silent witness of a latent violence that is merely suggested to the spectator? To disorient you even more and blur the lines between illusion and reality, three-dimensional tears were sewn onto the matching veil. The “Tears” dress is disconcerting on many levels. The “openings” remind us of the body’s vulnerability, while the “torn” fabric suggests a kind of violence. And so “Schiap”’s true spirit, made of elegance and extravagance, can be found in this couture evening dress that seems to be cut out of a ravaged piece of fabric. Luxury meets poverty. Perhaps one should see within this disquieting and atypical creation a premonition of a war that was then imminent.
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