Schiaparelli exhibition - embroidered jackets galore!

Recently, I got to go to the Schiaparelli exhibition at the Victoria and Albert museum in London. I love the V&A’s fashion and textile exhibitions and this blockbuster exhibition didn’t disappoint. I was especially taken with the amazing selection of Schiaparelli’s embroidered jackets. Read on for plenty of photos of this delightful pieces!

Suits

Photo of a light coloured trouser suit featuring large buttons and four square patch pockets with diagonally welt pockets.

Schiaparelli seems to have loved a suit and loved making pockets a feature (having ample pockets was a big part of my motivation to start sewing my clothes!).

She also embraced trouser suits as explained in this snippet:

“Trousers became a Schiaparelli signature at a time when most women wore them for sport or informal home wear. With typical daring, Schiaparelli embraced this garment as stylish attire for day and evening, even donning a pair of wide-legged culottes on a work trip to London in 1931.”

Here are a couple more examples of her suits:

Photo of a skirt suit with black skirt and white jacket with black buttons and fern like embellishments.

Photo of a skirt suit with A-line brown skirt and blue jacket featuring two very large buttons. In the background is another suit in shades of burgundy.

Dresses and beautiful pattern cutting

There were plenty of examples of Schiaparelli’s dresses – bias cut, interesting pattern cutting details and daring prints.

I’m afraid I didn’t get many photos of them on my recent trip, but if you’re interested in seeing more, let me know as I’ll most likely go again!

Here’s one that really did catch my eye for its clever pattern cutting details was this 1938 dress that “transforms the wearer into an animator element of classical architecture”.

Photo of a light gold dress with a square and folded neckline, and pleats and seams down the front that look like a classical architecture column.

Schiaparelli embroidered jackets

Then, there were loads of gorgeous embroidered jackets to admire, here’s a little selection from what was probably my favourite room of the exhibition:

Photo of short sleeve jacket in a light fabric. The front is heavily embellished with floral embroidery and tambourine buttons.

Check out the fold detail on the collar of this one:

Photo of the top part of a pink striped jacket. The collar uses pleats to create the look of a classically tailored collar.

I love how much useful stuff you could carry in the pockets of this one!

Photo of a black jacket with goldwork embroidery embellishment on very large pockets.

Don’t you think this one is a lot of fun! Especially those buttons…

Photo of jacket with a bright pink front covered in embroidered vegetable motifs and with buttons shaped like different vegetables.

Another one with plenty of bling 🙂

Black jacket with a palm tree design around the collar, front and bottom in goldwork embroidery.

A clever placement of the embroidered design on this one:

A grey wrap over jacket with lots of gold on one sleeve and embroidery on the front to make this look like the flowing hair of a woman.

And finally, one from Schiaparelli’s circus collection… I was immediately impressed by the embroidery for the elephants and acrobats, then on closer inspection realised that the background looks like it has also been stitched in place. What an impressive amount of work!