Aiming For The Sun At Schiaparelli Haute Couture Spring/Summer 2025

Kicking off Paris Haute Couture Week, Daniel Roseberry embraces the pursuit of perfection

Schiaparelli Haute Couture Spring/Summer 2025 / All images: Schiaparelli

In Paris, Daniel Roseberry kicked off Paris Haute Couture Week with ‘Icarus’, a Spring/Summer 2025 collection that pays homage to Schiaparelli’s storied legacy while exploring a deeply personal narrative of craftsmanship and imagination.

At the heart of the collection lies a chance encounter with antique ribbons from the 1920s and 1930s unearthed in a small shop. These delicate treasures, imbued with colours like saffron, butter, mink, and a rich burnt brown aptly named “toast,” set the tone for Roseberry’s latest feat. As he wrote in his show notes, the designer viewed these pieces as an invitation to travel back to Haute Couture’s greatest days.

“I spent months studying the great chapters of great couturiers from various decades: Madame Grès, Charles Frederick Worth, Paul Poiret, Yves Saint Laurent, and Azzedine Alaïa,” he writes. “I didn’t want to copy their work; I wanted to learn from them.”

These ribbons and the stories they told inspired him to create a collection that feels both nostalgic and visionary. It boldly rejects the notion that modernity must equate to simplicity or that opulence and minimalism cannot coexist.

The silhouettes transport us through a century of celebrated couture. “Liquid deco” gowns echo the slinky elegance of the 1920s and 1930s, featuring fragile silk georgette embroidered with Japanese bugle beads, which were sculpted into sharp, dramatic hip blades. Architectural Schiaparelli jackets have been streamlined and paired with 1990s-inspired bias-cut column skirts, while the 1950s golden age is reinterpreted in padded A-line baby doll dresses dropped from the hips and rendered in a sumptuous leather-like satin cuir adorned with the house’s iconic motifs.

Roseberry’s knack for mind-boggling innovation shines through his experimental approach to material and technique. Feathers brushed with keratin achieve the weight and texture of Ginger Rogers’s 1930s costumes, while a plissé halter dress in sand-hued polyamide tulle offers a modern, structured take on founder Elsa Schiaparelli’s elegant gowns.

This playful craftsmanship extends to accessories, delicately treated and embroidered with Matador cording and resin rosettes.

In a flurry of textures, shapes and silhouettes, Roseberry’s pursuit of more is as inspiring as ever.

“Haute Couture aspires to reach great heights; it promises an escape from our complicated reality. It also reminds us that perfection comes at a price. How high can we couturiers go?” notes Roseberry. “As high as the sun—and the Gods—allow us.