Femininity, Freedom and Fragility: Fashion and Violence in the Designs of Elsa Schiaparelli, c.1933 - 1939

In 1934, Vogue wrote that ‘exhalations of fragility abound.’[1] What kind of fragility did it refer to? How were women fragile within life, and how was this reflected, expressed, and addressed by their clothing? Within the same article, the author went on to state that ‘women are genuinely trying to regain the kingdom of power.’ Given the article’s context within a high fashion magazine, how, precisely, could this effort to defeat fragility be manifested sartorially? Was there a tangible, visible endeavor to regain ‘power’ within dress? And what did such references to fragility and power allude to? By the mid-late 1930s, political events began to overshadow Europe and America, and impacted fashion, as the threat of the Second World War began to hover ominously. Elsa Schiaparelli has typically been noted for her playful, flirtatious, Surrealist and artistic tactics. However, during the later 1930s, pieces began to emerge within her otherwise high-spirited collections that revealed a frisson of the tension and anxiety that emerged on the international, contextual scene. This article will take Schiaparelli as a case study, and examine key examples of her output at this time that express explicit, physical violence. It will consider how they can be seen to enable women to cope with the violent onslaught of modernity through an aesthetic of attack.

[1] Vogue, New York, March 15th, 1935, p. 73. 2