Leather corsets are modeled on the abdominal muscles and female breasts like the armor of contemporary amazons.
Mermaid dresses were embroidered like jewels with thousands of stones and crystals.
Abyssal necklines on the B side reveal the buttocks shameless.
Tight-fitting but padded silhouettes on the torso and arms remind of superheroes in action in their suits.
A black Madonna, with a golden halo, in a rigorous long black dress with hood, holds her inanimate golden baby in her arms, whose cries can be heard.
It is the Schiaparelli Haute couture 2021 collection, presented with a video as part of the calendar of Parisian fashion shows.
A proposal that bursts into the ordinary and flattening out of pandemic depression with all its eccentric sartorial elegance, which enhances the body of women to whom the creative director of the maison Daniel Roseberry, in times of virus, has decided to put on his muscles.
Dense embroideries, skirts made from meters of silk, important volumes, fairytale dresses, and everything that the word couture evokes.
Lady Gaga is well aware that to sing the American anthem during the inauguration ceremony of US President Joe Biden she chose a romantic red and blue dress by Schiaparelli, with a fluffy skirt just enough to keep the anti-covid distance.
That vision of couture unchanged since the 1950s has been reinterpreted by Roseberry as a celebration of the female body.
"In my third collection for Schiaparelli - explains the designer - I wanted to challenge the idea of what couture should be, with clothes that respect the tradition of this maison and the art behind it, without clichés. fantasy is not applied to princess dresses or polite garments. Fantasy is inside. They are dresses that make you aware of your body, that make you think about how you move in the world. Elsa Schiaparelli also created dresses that explored the body, in a childlike way, not neurotic. His were garments to celebrate the joy of showing off, of showing off ".
"We started - he adds - discarding the usual couture silhouettes. I wanted to take pieces that shouldn't be shown in this context. Trousers, a bomber jacket, to invite people to see them in a new way".
Thus the blouson leather trousers have an elastic waistband, the cream-colored denim jeans are re-imagined in faded and double-faced duchess silk, embellished with hanging golden padlocks.
The fabrics are disruptive: along with silk faille, printed leather and crisp taffeta, there is also silk velvet tied to neoprene and a sinuous stretch silk jersey for the draped column dress.
Yet, irreverent as it may seem, all of this follows the legacy of the house and its founder, who loved the new.
In fact, she was the first couturier to use synthetic fabrics.
The first to incorporate plastic hinges into her work.
His ambition was to experiment, to be irreverent in all forms, iconographies, colors.
"We referred to many of the codes and looks he invented - reveals Daniel - directly and indirectly. Our woven wool cape, studded with thousands of gold beads, evokes his 1938 model, with embroidered hood. in the shape of a hair. Its distinctive lock has been transformed into a minaudiere. The meter mark, in a band that creates a train of silk faille. A couture atelier can decorate in a unique way, and these pieces are dazzling examples of the art of embroidery. I have always admired the way Elsa embroidered pieces, in an age when they were of almost whispered quality, hers were powerful and unexpected. I tried to bring the same spirit into a collection where embroidery it is treated as a decoration, almost like a jewel, the hand of the craftsman who made it is unmistakable. An appropriate complement to equally daring silhouettes ".
"The word magic - he concludes - is often used when speaking of couture. But behind the magic there is a human hand and a human dedication. This collection is a tribute to both the magic and the work behind the magic itself. ".