Elsa avant Elsa is a world-book, conceived by the Gallerie Nazionali di Arte Antica together with the Accademia dei Lincei and the Maison Schiaparelli. For the first time it reconstructs the environment of formation and subsequent inspiration of the revolutionary creator of art and fashion Elsa Schiaparelli: classical Rome, its monuments, its gardens, and the library in her home in Palazzo Corsini. For the first time, it traces ancient echoes and references and returns them to the reader, veritable quotations of classical and Renaissance Rome in her work as a designer, mingling and partly mitigating the exuberance and vitality of Surrealism. The book, in short, depicts her formative milieu. The cover depicts the constellation of Ursa Major that her beloved uncle Giovanni, a famous astronomer, claimed was drawn in her facial moles and which became a talismanic image for Elsa. In addition, the chromatic counterpoint of the colour pink stands out in the pages, the hallmark of her artistic output.

The first section of the volume analyses the family and cultural environment of Elsa’s early youth, in Rome in the early twentieth century. The people and books that surrounded her nurtured her attraction to distant worlds, in particular the East, continuous influences that would re-emerge in her creative processes.
The second section, devoted to New York, represents the next chapter of the designer’s journey and marks the transition from European tradition to modernity and American dynamism. The entwining of the avant-garde with humour, the love of disguise and the glamorous radicalism of this period would always remain with her.

The third part of the book deals with her period in Paris, where Elsa received her consecration by founding the Maison Schiaparelli. Thanks also to partnerships with artists of the calibre of Salvador Dali and Jean Cocteau, Schiaparelli transformed fashion into a unique and creative experience, defining an aesthetic vocabulary that continues to inspire stylists and designers.

Texts by Alessandra Avagliano, Ebe Antetomaso, Flaminia Gennari Santori, Francesco Pastore and Luca Scarlini.

Graphic design by Irene Bacchi and Leonardo Sonnoli, Studio Sonnoli.