Vintage Schiaparelli Necklace & Bracelet Set- Gilt & Black Onyx Glass!
Retail $1800
Thisis a beautiful demi parure designed and signed by Schiaparelli and featuringbeautiful gold plated & enameled leaves & large faceted jet blackstones.
Thisset consists of a six link bracelet & a matching necklace.
Thenecklace measures 17\" long x 1\" wide. The bracelet is 7.5\" longx 1 3/8\" wide. All pieces have a classic, rich look.
Eachlink of both the necklace & bracelet contains beautiful heart-shaped leavesand large 1/2\" x 3/8\" faceted stones- jet black glass.
Thecraftsmanship on this set is amazing & is sure to be a show-stopper! Marks:\"Schiaparelli\" on both pieces- dating to the 1950-1960.
Remarks:The necklace is in near excellent condition; the bracelet shows light wear on afew of the leaves- not noticeable without magnification. Designs by ElsaSchiaparelli are incredibly hard to find & this one is incredible!
Weight:110 Grams
Handlingcharge of $5 insures your package.
Notes on Elsa Schiaparelli
Elsa Schiaparelli was born in Rome,Italy in 1890. \"Schiap\", as she was known to her friends, was a bitof a rebel & was sent to a convent until, at the age of 22, she accepted ajob as a nanny. En route to London, Elsa was invited to a ball in Paris. Shehad no ball gown so she bought yards of dark blue fabric, wrapped it aroundherself & pinned it in place.
Elsa led a refined life because of herparents\' wealth and high social status but she believed that this luxury wasstifling to her art and creativity & moved to New York City where sheworked selling French fashions. Later, when her friends, artists Marcel Duchamp& Man Ray, left for Paris, Schiaparelli joined them. Another artist &collaborator, Salvador Dalí, influenced her knitwear designs esp. her shoe hat,Tears dress, the lamb-cutlet hat & a 1936 day suit with pockets simulatinga chest of drawers.
Schiaparelli had a lot of\"firsts\" in the fashion industry. She was the first to use brightlycolored zippers (1930) & the first to have them dyed to match her fabrics.She created fanciful buttons that looked like brooches, invented culottes,introduced Arab breeches, embroidered shirts, wrapped turbans, pompom-rimmedhats, barbaric belts, the \"wedge,\" shoe & mix-and-matchsportswear. Her most influential idea was that of the runway show using music,art & slender, elongated women as models.
In 1937, she created the Lobster Dress,a simple white silk evening dress with a crimson waistband featuring a largelobster painted onto the skirt by Dali. His design for Schiaparelli wasinterpreted into a fabric print by the leading designer Sache & this fabricwas famously worn by Wallis Simpson in photographs taken at the Château deCandé shortly before her marriage to Edward VIII.
Schiaparelli\'s perfumes were noted fortheir unusual packaging & bottles. Her best-known perfume was\"Shocking!\" (1936), whose bottle was sculpted by Leonor Fini in theshape of a woman\'s torso inspired by Mae West\'s tailor\'s dummy. The packagingwas in shocking pink, one of Schiaparelli\'s signature colors.
Perhaps Schiaparelli\'s most importantlegacy was in bringing to fashion the playfulness & sense of fun. She lovedto play with colors, shapes and textures.
Schiaparelli\'s Famous Mentions:
In the film \"Gold Diggers\"(1933): I can remember not so long ago a penthouse on Park Avenue. With a realtree, and flowers, and a fountain, and a French maid. And a warm bath with saltfrom Yardley\'s. And a little dress that Schiaparelli ran up.\'
Cole Porter\'s 1936 musical \"Red,Hot and Blue\" mentions a woman who \"sits above the town in herSchiaparelli gown\".
Louis MacNeice\'s poem \"AutumnJournal\" (1939): \'Or give me a new Muse with stockings and suspenders And asmile like a cat With false eyelashes and finger-nails of carmine And dressedby Schiaparelli, with a pill-box hat.\'
Nancy Mitford\'s 1949 novel \"Love ina Cold Climate\" tells how the heroine Fanny wants to wear the Schiaparellilabel on the outside of a jacket \"so that people would know where it camefrom\".
Her greatest rival, Coco Chanel, and shewere regarded as two of the most prominent figures in fashion between the twoWorld Wars. Chanel referred to her as \'that Italian artist who makes clothes\'.Considered madder and more original than most of her contemporaries, MmeSchiaparelli is the one to whom the word \"genius\" is applied mostoften\".
Elsa, at age 64, wrote her autobiographyand lived out a comfortable retirement in her apartment in Paris and house inTunisia. She died in 1973.
