The art of movement: Daniel Roseberry kicks of Paris Couture Week with a collection in homage to prima ballerina Anna Pavlova at latest Schiaparelli Haute Couture show (2024)

Since Daniel Roseberry’s 2019 appointment as Creative Director of Schiaparelli, there are a few things that you can count on as consistently as the stars coming out at night: First, a steady stream of otherworldly chic perpetuating the heritage house’s founders predilection for avant-garde elegance will always prevail throughout each collection; an unrivalled fanfare from style-sleuthing netizens across the globe will ensue each time a new line drops; and, at Paris Couture Week, the designer du jour will unwaveringly bring a stellar cast of A-listers, It-girls and haute heroines for the debut show of the season.

Today was no exception. At the Hôtel Salomon de Rothschild, Roseberry once again conjured an undeniably glitzy crowd to open the Winter 2024 event. Among the glittering guests was Hollywood icon Selma Blair (dressed in a drop-waist cream suit with a plaited ponytail tie), glamazon extraordinaire Sabrina Dhowre Elba (in midnight blue-hued velvet tailoring), and rap royalty Doja Cat (serving future-proof fabulousness in an oversized textured coat dress and black velvet headpiece which she paired playfully with a golden cigarette holder). Kelly Rutherford was there too. Experiencing a rousing resurgence on the front row as of late, the original Gossip Girl mum looked the picture of modern opulence in a decadently draped ecru gown and statement aureate jewellery.

But once inside the basem*nt of the 19th century former home of banking heir Salomon James de Rothschild’s widow, Adèle von Rothschild - which had been transformed into a dark dreamscape of lush black carpets and imposing crystal chandeliers - Roseberry told a very different tale to the light and airy élégantes posing outside the venue for his latest Schiaparelli Haute Couture collection.

Dubbed ‘The Phoenix’, his latest line pays homage to a particular moment in house founder Elsa Schiaparelli’s life. In 1941, the designer attended the opening gala of Paris’s Ambassadeurs restaurant, donning a gown hand painted by artist Jean Dunand with a coq-feathered stole she draped around her shoulders. It was in honour of prima ballerina and belle of Les Ballets Russes, Anna Pavlova, who had died that year and who Schiaparelli, with her cropped ‘do and sharp features, would often get mistaken for.

A symbiotic act of mistaken identity between two groundbreaking pioneers in the worlds of art, dance and fashion, Schiaparelli celebrated her contemporary visionary with her ensemble on this evening. ‘But if Pavlova was always associated with her iconic performance in “The Dying Swan,” then Schiaparelli was a phoenix, a magical creature whose power lay in her ceaseless ability to reinvent—not only herself, but fashion, too,’ said Roseberry on his inspirations.

At today’s event, Roseberry inaugurated his collection with this very mythological being rising from the ashes, sending out a black velvet cape painstakingly embroidered to create a trompe l’oeil effect of shining wings to open the show. Paired with large chrome earrings and diamond-bedecked sandals, it set the tone of gargantuan glamour that would soon follow.

The ephemeral movements of dance were held in perpetual motion as if pliéing from the stage thanks to Roseberry’s prowess as a leading couturier of a generation. A mille-feuille of satin hoops bounced out beneath a corseted bustier gown, silk organza feathers sprouted out from jackets in an almost-eerily life-like plumage, and hand-cut silk ribbons fell decadently from another navy silk hourglass design. Meanwhile, a number of 3D thorn-encrusted draped ensembles appeared like dreamed-up figures of Schiaparelli’s most intoxicating surrealist lore.

It ignited the ever-present zeitgeist appeal of Roseberry’s Schiaparelli: one that honours the prominent figures of the house’s past - from Wallis, duch*ess of Windsor through to Countess Maxime de la Falaise (as seen in a series grandiose gowns that could easily have leapt from the history books of haute couture) - while remaining simultaneously on the cusp of future-proof fashion. Reinvention is the route to ingenuity á la mode. Rise from the flames of fashion with Schiaparelli Haute Couture.