Luxury magazine: October 2022

Trainers as art

A childhood obsession with self-expression has turned Bahraini collector Mohamed Al Safar into one of the biggest rare trainer collectors in the region. His haul of more than 2,500 covetable shoes, some of which are proudly displayed in special transparent boxes in the living room of his Burj Khalifa penthouse, is currently valued at more than $2 million.

Al Safar, 32, is the director of his family-owned Al Safar Group, which has interests in education, hospitality, property and food retail, and has its headquarters in Bahrain. He splits his time between the US, the UAE and Bahrain. He says his passion for shoes began in school, where everyone was required to wear uniforms, but were allowed to wear footwear of their choice.

“I used to always wear the flashiest and craziest-looking shoes that no one wore to school and I really enjoyed people’s reactions to what I rocked,” he says.

Al Safar’s Dubai apartment is also filled with other rare collectibles, mostly from the fashion world. Holding pride of place is a monogrammed 400-kilogram, 317-centimetre-long oversized park bench created by late Louis Vuitton menswear designer Virgil Abloh for the maison’s spring/summer 2020 runway presentation in Paris in 2019.

But his first love, he says, is shoes. And the ones in Dubai make up only a third of his total collection, with the rest homed in his apartment in California. The father-of-two says he’s not interested in collecting just any trainers, only the rarest ones.
His latest acquisition is from a collaboration between Louis Vuitton and Nike that was overseen by Abloh and that has become highly covetable following his untimely death last year.

“Virgil Abloh was one of the most creative designers ever,” Al Safar says. “Louis Vuitton released nine different colours of Louis Vuitton Air Force 1s and I’m lucky to have all of them in the collection.” On popular sneaker marketplace StockX, Louis Vuitton Air Force 1s are now going for as much as $6,000.

One thing Al Safar is still itching to get his hands on is a pair of Jordan 4 Eminem Encore, released to celebrate the rapper’s album of the same name in 2004. One website calls them “the rarest Jordan 4s to date”, and StockX currently has the pair listed at $24,000. “That’s the pair I’m dying to get,” Al Safar says. “Eminem is one of my favourite rappers of all time and I need this shoe to complete his Jordan set.”

For aspiring shoe collectors, his advice is to “buy what you like.

“And if you miss out on a release, don’t stress about it. There are many more releases to come.”
David Tusing

Clothing as culture

One woman’s passion for collecting clothing from around the Middle East has gradually evolved into an invaluable and unparalleled record of a fast-disappearing facet of local culture.

Reem El Mutwalli began accumulating regional clothing while she was working on her doctorate project: Sultani, traditions renewed; Changes in Women’s Traditional Dress in the UAE during the reign of Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan 1966-2004.

“I began gathering the UAE collection organically. As I worked on my doctorate, I found myself in the fortunate position of being the recipient of many of the dresses illustrated upon in my thesis,” El Mutwalli explains.

Now called The Zay Initiative, the collection has grown exponentially. El Mutwalli continues to gather items that are handmade, and often decorated with patterns, colours and motifs relevant to a specific region, person or event. In documenting the stories behind each piece, she and her team are preserving a disappearing aspect of history. It is, however, a daunting task.

The Zay Initiative currently holds more than 2,000 articles of Arab dress, with no end in sight. “We continue to collect and preserve pieces and through our online digital archive, thezay.org, these pieces tell the story of people from all walks of Arab life, mainly women, who come to this world and leave little trace behind,” she says.

Yet despite accumulating a “bountiful and constant plethora of rich and valuable resources”, El Mutwalli and her team are aware that many other pieces are being thrown away as older generations die and their families do not understand the significance of the clothing they leave behind. “More often than not, [they are] swiftly being lost or misconstrued because of a lack of accurate documentation.”

The role of the collection is simple, El Mutwalli explains. “Through the preservation of these pieces, The Zay Initiative plays a significant role in fortifying, encapsulating and sustaining a small but important part of Arab history. Hence our slogan, collecting the tangible to narrate the intangible.”

As the custodian of so many unique items, she says it is impossible for her to single one out as the most special. “I don’t have the heart to choose just one. Each piece is worthy of being treasured. Each demonstrates, in its own way, a special technique used, a unique cutting method incorporated, a distinctive placement of pattern, a particular type of embroidery or a distinguished arrangement of motif.”

El Mutwalli is driven by the prospect of all that is still out there. “My passion to collect and preserve as many pieces as I can find, learn about them and educate others in the process, is boundless.”

However, there is a caveat. “Collecting as a hobby is one thing and collecting with the intention to seriously document a culture is another. The latter comes with great responsibility and an institutional perspective. Crossing that bridge is a daily learning process that is enlightening on a personal level and overwhelming at the same time.”

The scale of the task taken on by El Muwalli and her team is vast; so she has this advice for others looking to take their collection into the realm of institutional resource. “Make sure you love it. It is a lonely undertaking and so, the more invested you are in what you are doing, the more it will drive you.

“Even when some people might think what you do is not significant, remain steadfast in the knowledge that your collection will not only truly sustain a small part of our shared history, but also educate and inspire people, maybe not today, but years from now, and someone will have you to thank for preserving it.”
Sarah Maisey

For the record

Value is a relative concept for a dedicated record collector. While Lobito Brigante’s extensive collection – which he estimates features about 23,000 records – boasts a number of lucrative rarities, he measures their worth by the emotions and memories they inspire. “The most valuable records have some personal attachment. There are those that remind me of a time over 20 years ago,” he says.

“An example is I’m On My Way by Candido. At that time, I was spinning at a lot of b-boy battles and there was a track I heard that maybe one other DJ played. So I eventually found it when searching and that beat was by Candido. These kind of records mean a lot to me because they remind me of my musical evolution.”

That journey brought the Spaniard to Dubai 15 years ago, where he has built an expansive career as a formidable DJ and festival organiser, and recently launched the already acclaimed Dubai restaurant and bar Electric Pawn Shop.

Located in the H Hotel, the venue is home to more than 2,000 vinyl records from Brigante’s collection, which are used by him and guest DJs for eclectic sets that feature everything from the soundtracks of classic Japanese yakuza films to obscure funk tracks from the US, Latin America and South-east Asia.

None of Brigante’s purchases are random. He says each “digging” session – a term used by collectors for record-hunting expeditions – involves a mix of planning and patience. “Each country I travel to, I have a list of records from that place I want to get. Not all the records have to be obscure or rare; sometimes they are the ones that are just hard to find internationally,” he says.

“I also make sure I visit record shops that have the kind of music that I want or find interesting, and a large selection of original pressings and old records for me to really dig into.”

Brigante’s efforts have more often than not borne fruit. During a visit to Georgia last year, he bought a number of Soviet-era Georgian and Armenian jazz and funk records, while an August trip to New York yielded a rare copy of American composer Roy Ayers’s 1972 album He’s Coming.

Despite the bulging shelves in his Dubai home and at Electric Pawn Shop, not to mention those in storage in Spain and the UK, Brigante says his search for innovative and pioneering sounds will continue. “Whatever I have is just a drop in the ocean when it comes to music,” he says.

“If I look at my physical collection of records, there is not enough time for me to listen to them back to back and take the time to appreciate them. Now multiply that by infinity when it comes to the music that is still out there. This is why when you are a collector who loves music, you are always missing something,” Brigante says.

But that shouldn’t scare off aspiring collectors, as pleasure and wisdom are found in the journey. “My advice is to be true to yourself. My musical journey is shaped by who I am, my background, where I grew up, my parents and their tastes, my early and generational influences,” he says.

“The deeper you get in your collecting journey, the more you will learn about these connections and you will appreciate the origin of things. You start to understand how music has evolved into what it is now, and it will also help you relate to people from other generations and cultures. Music has that power to expand your mind.”
Saeed Saeed

Driven by passion

“The love for cars was inherited, not acquired,” says Rashed Al Fahim, founder of DRVN Coffee. |

In the 1950s, Sheikh Zayed, UAE Founding Father, asked Al Fahim’s grandfather to start importing cars into the country. “He would bring them in by ship and as the cars landed on the sand, the owners would come with their cash, drive their cars off the boat and take them home,” Al Fahim says.

From those early endeavours, the family business now sells 10,000 cars a year, and operates distributorships, showrooms, service centres, parts warehouses and retail outlets across the UAE, with facilities spanning 92,000 square metres.

In 1969, Al Fahim’s father acquired the first car in a collection that is now 100 strong and stored in four separate locations. “That’s how the whole DRVN concept started. We had all these cars, which were always hidden, and I wanted to bring them out so people could share the passion.”

Al Fahim opened the first DRVN Coffee on Abu Dhabi’s Airport Road, combining artisanal coffee, top-quality food and a little slice of automotive history in a single space. Its third outpost opened a year ago in Dubai’s Bluewaters, in partnership with Porsche. Presented in rotation and encased within glass boxes are some of the most historically important cars ever produced by the German manufacturer.

“A Porsche lover could think of the most iconic cars Porsche has ever built, and they have come through here. We have had the GT1, we’ve had the Moby Dick, we’ve had the first Porsche ever made, we’ve had the 959, we have another 959 on display right now. If you close your eyes and imagine all the iconic Porsches, they’ve been here. At one point, we had something like $400 million worth of cars in the space.”

Al Fahim took over management of his father’s car collection in 2015. “I decided that I was going to start picking cars based on value, quality and desirability.

“We figured that in the past 10 years, classic cars and rare cars had gone up in value significantly; we’re talking three-figure percentages. So we needed to start being more strategic in terms of what we acquire and what we keep and what’s worth maintaining.”

One particularly significant addition was a Mercedes-Benz 300SL Gullwing. “To me, it is probably the most iconic car ever built. A car built in 1955 that goes over 260kph and drives the way it does and wins the amount of races it did, is just amazing.”

Al Fahim was previously a pilot for Emirates, and on a trip to Houston, visited a Bugatti and Lamborghini dealership. “I found a Gullwing in there. Someone had traded the car in for a Bugatti Chiron. I offered them something and it wasn’t accepted and then we ended up going back and forth for two years until we came to an agreement, and we acquired the car. That was and still is the centrepiece of the collection.”

Patience is the most important virtue of any collector, he says. “Don’t rush in thinking you need to complete a collection. Always go for what you love and screams your name. And no car, no acquisition, should take food from the table.”
Selina Denman

Grand designs

A career in advertising combined with a passion for real estate laid the foundations for Elie Khouri’s collecting journey.

Storytelling, the language of communication and the impact of ideas on human behaviour are all concepts that have shaped his work, as well as the works he acquires.

Khouri has spent the past 15 years putting together one of the region’s foremost collections of contemporary international art and design, which, he says, “are essential elements in the beautification of life and in making life much more engaging and refined”. His diverse collection of art, which includes hundreds of works, can be divided into four major themes: figuration; subverting geometry or geometric abstraction; new technologies and media; and language and communication.

The first serious work that he acquired was by Lebanese-American artist Nabil Nahas. “What attracted me to that piece of work was the bright colours and the craftsmanship of the work. But more importantly, the title, which is So Happy To See You. I thought it was very inviting, very fresh, very positive. It gave a very positive outlook on life, and I was immediately attracted to it and bought it.”

For Khouri, who is the chairman of Omnicom Media Group and chief executive of Vivium Holding, the process of acquiring rare works is an “addiction” rather than an investment. “You don’t think of it as an investment, you first think of it as something you love. When you love something and you want to have it and you want to live with it, ideally you hope it becomes an investment. If it does, then great. If it doesn’t, then you are living with it and you’re enjoying it. So the love for the work has to be the driving element.”

Khouri buys, on average, 30 to 35 works every year, and while he cannot pick an overall favourite, he can share what is currently up there. “You love every piece of work. You have favourites that keep changing with the times and as your tastes evolve. My current favourite is a portrait by Nicolas Party that I acquired last year. I was very proud to acquire it – it wasn’t easy. And my favourite piece of design is a brass sushi buffet by the Campana Brothers.”

Khouri is in constant contact with gallery owners and dedicated advisers as he continues to develop his collection. “When you want to be in this world, it is really important to keep training your eye,” he says. “And training your eye means being exposed to the best work and going to museums, art fairs, galleries, every show in the world that you can think of, whether for art or design.”

But, he notes, you do not need to be rich to buy art or design. “You can buy at any budget,” he advises. “There is something for everyone. For art, you can buy a poster or a print, or something that is under $1,000. There are a lot of emerging artists. So it’s not about the size of the budget, it’s about the intention. You can buy a vase that is beautifully designed for a few hundred dollars. So never be daunted by the budget.”

By default, a collection that is so personal and so emotionally driven becomes a reflection of its owner. So what does Khouri’s haul say about him?
“It says that I am quite eclectic, that I like vibrancy, I like boldness, I like ideas that are challenging and thoughtful, and I like things that are engaging. Those are common threads through the collection, whether art or design.”
Selina Denman

The trend: creative collaborations

VALENTINO

Valentino created a new hue for its autumn/winter collection, called Pink PP. Developed with Pantone Colour Institute, the shade appears to almost glow.

LOEWE

Artist Anthea Hamilton created large, pumpkin-like shapes for the set of Loewe’s autumn/winter 2022 show, echoing the silhouettes of the clothes.

MM6 MAISON MARGIELA

MM6 reworks a signature running shoe by Salomon – now offered in bright hues, it has a drawstring gaiter added on top.

STELLA MCCARTNEY

Works by American artist Frank Stella are splashed across the latest Stella McCartney collection, Stella By Stella, to form a new type of wearable art.

DIOR

Italian company Dynamic Autonomy and Intelligent Robots Lab teamed up with Dior to create protective padding and layers, which were then fused with Dior classics such as the Bar Jacket.

Paper dolls

A sense of wonderment pervades as the autumn/winter collections are presented through a child-like prism. You are never too old to play dress up

FASHION DIRECTOR: Sarah Maisey
PHOTOGRAPHER: Nicoleta Buru at MMG
HAIR AND MAKE-UP: Ania Poniatowska at MMG MODEL: Vanusa at MMG

Dressage rider Natalie Lankester, and her horse Fürst, have spent the summer competing in Europe, putting the UAE on the map in this still relatively under-represented discipline. Next up, the Asian Games and, hopefully, a crack at the Olympics. Selina Denman chats with her

It’s a crisp summer’s day at the Morgan Barbançon Mestre Dressage Academy in the sleepy Swiss municipality of Anières. Horses graze under a powder blue sky as UAE equestrian Natalie Lankester, who has jumped straight out of the saddle and on to our Zoom call, offers me a glimpse of the idyllic surrounds where she has spent the past few months training.

After successful 2021 and 2022 seasons in the UAE, where she qualified to represent the country at the 2023 Asian Games in Hangzhou, China, Lankester has spent the summer “levelling up”, training with French Olympian Morgan Barbançon and competing on the European dressage circuit for the first time. “We’ve had a really successful season,” she tells me. “It’s been really good for putting the UAE on the map for dressage. I think I’m one of the first female riders to be over here representing the UAE, which is amazing.”

She talks affectionately about “her boys”, the four exceptional horses that have accompanied her to Europe and carried her to success at top-level competitions. There are the youngsters – Franzeniro DXB, 4, and Lord Flanell DXB, 6 – as well as Echo DXB, 13, who Lankester describes as “fantastic and really fun”.

And then there’s the 9-year-old Fürst Dance DXB. Lankester clearly knows it’s bad form to admit to having favourites, but Fürst Dance is undeniably special. He has competed six times in Europe and won on every occasion.

And it was this horse, more than anything, that spurred Lankester’s dreams of competing in the big leagues. “When I got Fürst Dance, he was 5, turning 6, and he was the first horse that had real potential to go to Grand Prix level, so I thought, why not do it? It was, for sure, Fürst Dance who really made me think, I can do this, I can get to the top.”

Lankester grew up around horses in Shropshire in the UK and is essentially following in the footsteps of her grandmother, who was also a dressage rider. She spent time in Saudi Arabia as a child and moved to Dubai more than a decade ago, to join her father, who was already living here. She met and married her husband, Sheikh Rashid bin Ahmed Al Maktoum, a top-level showjumper, in 2015, and the couple welcomed their first daughter, Sheikha Hessa, in 2016, followed by Sheikha Alia in 2019.

Her sojourn in Switzerland has offered Lankester the opportunity to work her horses throughout the day and spend time properly bonding with them. In the UAE, schedules are a little more intense. “In Dubai, it’s an early start for us because of the heat. We are generally up with the horses at 5am and then ride one horse after the other. I get back, do the school run and then head to the gym and also play padel tennis. Then there’s school pickups and afternoons with the kids.

“It’s a pretty full-on schedule. And then we have competitions at the weekends, which my girls come to with me. My husband is a show jumper so we also have his schedule for the season. We are very busy, but we absolutely love it. It’s our life, it’s our passion, it’s everything.”

At 3 and 5 years old, Lankester’s daughters are already keen riders. “They actually like jumping, because it’s more fun, so Rashid is very happy about that. They’re good girls and are both good riders, so I hope one day they will follow in our footsteps,” she says.

Dressage is a dance of precision, where rider and horse must work in total unison. The ability to unwaveringly connect with your horse is key, says Lankester. “If you see me and my boys, we are like peas in a pod. We are very close. There is 100 per cent trust between us, and there needs to be. Because when you are going in to these competitions, it’s totally unknown environments. There’s a lot to take in. Especially at these big internationals in Europe, the atmosphere is huge.

“So they need to know they can trust me and we are going to be okay, and I need to know I can trust them. So for me, connection, the personality of the horse and their character is very important. It’s not just about their natural movement and abilities. You can have the best moving horse that doesn’t want to do it. And you can’t make them.

“Some horses don’t take pressure well. Some horses need to have the pressure. It’s a balance, definitely, and you do need to find the right horse for you. Not every horse works with every rider. But if you have a good training system and good basics in place, it’s possible to make it work.”

Lankester has responded particularly well to Barbançon’s training techniques, which have been developed over a number of years and focus on positive reinforcement rather than “nasty pressure”. She says she has been like a sponge, soaking up as much knowledge as possible, which she will bring back to Dubai and continue to put into practise.
Beyond the saddle, she has been working on her own mental and physical strength, learning to cope better with pressure and maintain her focus, while ensuring her body is as fit as it can be.

“Natalie has made huge progress over the past couple of months,” Barbançon tells me. “I would definitely say her strong points are her perseverance. She knows where she wants to go and is hard working and focused. She is always eager to learn more and do better. I’m really happy with how the horses have evolved over the summer and I’m really excited about what the future is going to bring.”

Beyond the Asian Games, Lankester’s plans include a crack at the Olympics, likely in Los Angeles in 2028, as there is probably not enough time to qualify for the 2024 Games in Paris. And in the meantime, she wants “to just keep competing, doing the summers in Europe and winters in the UAE. Just putting ourselves on the map and hopefully doing everyone proud”.

For Lankester, this is not a solitary pursuit – she is committed to elevating the profile of the UAE’s dressage scene as a whole and to encourage other riders in the country to follow in her footsteps. Lankester and her husband Sheikh Rashid have formed their own breeding programme for dressage and show jumping horses, to ensure that they, and fellow UAE riders, have access to top-class mounts in the future. “The fact that I’m able to compete for the UAE has given me a massive platform,” Lankester says of her “heart country”.

“I’m really honoured and privileged to be able to ride for the UAE. So I want to be able to encourage other riders in the country. I hope that I can open the floodgates a little bit and get other people to see that we can actually do it.”

Celebrating the cracks in life

Jasmine Monaco, chief wellness officer at Kintsugi, tells Sophie Prideaux why self-care is more important than ever

There’s a centuries-old tradition in Japan when a piece of pottery gets damaged: instead of throwing it away, the cracks are repaired with gold, turning imperfections into something stronger and more beautiful.

The practice, known as kintsugi, offered a poetic metaphor on which a wellness brand was developed in Abu Dhabi back in 2015. “Our founder reflected on how this concept of being broken, refortified and left uniquely beautiful also applied to her story, people and, more specifically, women of the world,” explains Jasmine Monaco, chief wellness officer at Kintsugi.

“This seeded the passion to take this message and share it with others, by providing wellness solutions that empower women to feel their best selves and to provide a safe space to celebrate the cracks in life – to learn, challenge and grow.”

This month, Kintsugi will open its first permanent physical wellness space in the heart of Abu Dhabi’s Al Reem Island, a moment that has been seven years in the making. Kintsugi Space, as it will be known, is the third pillar of the wellness brand, which already has Kintsugi Wisdom, an online magazine and education portal, and Kintsugi Collection, a bespoke offering of artisanal products that support its wellness mission.

“The momentum has been quite incredible,” says Monaco. “It’s an amazing feeling. What started as a seed in Japan has now blossomed into the most incredible space and brand in Abu Dhabi. The Kintsugi concept is needed worldwide, but I love that our first physical footprint benefits the incredible Emirati and expat women in its city of origin.”

Monaco has been with Kintsugi for a little more than 18 months. Her career as a wellness educator has taken her all over the world – from Dublin and Tokyo to Miami and Athens – working for brands such as St Regis and Ritz-Carlton. However, it was Kintsugi’s aspirations to do things differently that brought her to Abu Dhabi as the brand’s chief wellness officer.

“We are a team of highly conscious women who strive to make the world a better place and are not afraid to challenge the status quo in order to achieve that mission,” she says. “One of the reasons I adore the world of wellness is it’s constantly evolving and, for this reason, our wellness offering will continue to grow with our members.”

Membership is an important part of the Kintsugi concept. The space is strictly for women and operates on an exclusive members-only basis. And the brand is looking for a certain type of person to join its circle – women who want to fully commit themselves to its pledge to help transform their “physical, emotional and spiritual state”.

“Our space is distinctive in so many ways and will offer a true sanctuary from the outside world,” Monaco says. “Kintsugi Space is for all curious and courageous women who are keen to expand their existence. It’s for kind, empathetic women who are seeking to connect with a like-minded community that will support them in achieving their dreams and lend the same support back to the community in turn.”

If it feels like Monaco is being elusive with the exact details of what Kintsugi Space will house, that’s because she is. Kintsugi is committed to creating an exclusive sanctuary for its members, who will be considered on an application and recommendation basis. However, she promises state-of-the-art facilities, the latest innovative treatments and world-class wellness expertise.

“Kintsugi Space transcends the spas, clinics and salons of years gone by, honouring spiritual health as the gateway to true transformations,” she says. “To name but a few, we have the latest in wellness innovation like Hyperbaric oxygen therapy, cryotherapy and Keope, we host incredible partners such as Bastien Gonzalez and The Elixir Clinic, and the part that excites me the most is the deeply healing offering from our team of masters that specialise in energy work, light medicine and the art of biohacking.”

For Monaco, 2022 feels like the perfect time for Kintsugi Space to come to life, when, she says, both interest in and the need for wellness is at its peak. “Humans are still dealing with the pandemic and the aftermath of lockdowns, brain fog and isolated living,” she says. “This paired with a highly political world, social media pressures, inflation and the normal stresses of just existing in 2022 requires more routine, rituals and focus on wellness than ever.

“We women often carry greater emotional burdens than our male counterparts and have hormonal complexities that also require great care of our emotional, spiritual and physical bodies,” she continues. “I think the world has finally woken up to the fact that a life without wellness is no life at all.”

It is rare that a couture house is better known for what it does today than what it did a century ago. Dior, Chanel and Balenciaga are among the famous Parisian fashion labels to tap into their significant couture heritage to validate what they do now. However, Elsa Schiaparelli, who founded her maison in 1927 and shuttered it in 1954 after accruing large debts, is far less well-known.

Having lain dormant for 60 years, Schiaparelli was relaunched amid much excitement in 2012 by Italian fashion tycoon Diego Della Valle, chairman of Tod’s Group. Fabled guest designer Christian Lacroix was enlisted to create the initial collection, which was presented in Schiaparelli’s lovingly restored headquarters at 21, Place Vendôme.

However, it wasn’t until American singer Lady Gaga appeared in a spectacular custom-designed outfit to sing at President Biden’s inauguration that the Schiaparelli name truly registered on the radar of anyone outside the fashion world. The designer of that dress was Texan Daniel Roseberry, the thoughtful, quietly spoken son of an Anglican minister who was appointed creative director of the house of Schiaparelli in April 2019.

Schiaparelli was a competitor of Gabrielle Chanel and one of the most revered fashion names in the first half of the 20th century. Her pioneering collaborations included tie-ups with surrealist artists such as Jean Cocteau, Man Ray and Salvador Dali. Her use of “shocking” pink and witty details including the shoe hat, lobster dress, trompe d’oeil tear dress and chest of drawer pocket details on tailoring are examples of her irreverent design vocabulary. These relationships are explored in Shocking! The Surreal World of Elsa Schiaparelli, an exhibition at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris that opened this summer and will run until January 22.

In only 25 years, Schiaparelli turned fashion into a natural expression of the avant garde. She embodied the vision of a bright and vibrant Paris, curious about everything and enjoying each novelty that came her way. In November 1934, Harper’s Bazaar pronounced her to be “the most daring and original talent in the French dressmaking world … with volcanic energy and a fantastically fecund sense of modern invention”.

When she died in 1973, Cristóbal Balenciaga proclaimed her “the only real artist in couture”. Yves Saint Laurent similarly observed: “When she died, chic closed her eyes.”

Schiaparelli was not just a dressmaker, she was “a brand maker”, explains Roseberry, sitting in the almost bare white studio overlooking the bustling Place Vendôme where he spent the weekends during the pandemic sketching alone, in what at the time felt like an abandoned city. He realises, in hindsight, that it was a privilege and an incredibly inspiring time to think about her heritage, almost as if the ghost of Schiaparelli was looking over his shoulder.

“Her legacy is incredibly modern – the house is complicated because her work is specific and singular, but is still very relevant today,” Roseberry says, pointing out that relaunches of storied houses don’t always work. Like Vionnet, he suggests, who created a methodology about how to cut a garment rather than a lasting vision.

Roseberry believes the exhibition at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs lays bare “Elsa’s contribution to fashion – she was the first person to cross fashion with pop culture, but with artists that were the pop culture of that time”.

In a contemporary world, the creative dialogue between fashion and art has become almost commonplace, but Schiaparelli was the first to start that conversation. Perhaps because of her background, she was drawn into the bohemian world of artists.

An aristocrat, she grew up in a Baroque palace in Italy surrounded by Italian renaissance and classical antiquity and, intellectually, that went on to be reflected in her collections. Her father was an academic who specialised in the Islamic world and Middle Ages, while her uncle was a renowned astronomer. Schiaparelli, therefore, felt far more comfortable in the company of artists than in the Parisian “society” of her time.

She was an outsider, something that Roseberry can relate to coming to Paris as a little-known designer from Texas, who had spent 11 years working in New York at Thom Browne, a designer who himself likes to play with surrealist concepts. “I can see that there is a freedom to being an outsider that gives you permission to play by the rules or not,” Roseberry says. “I think there is something about this outsider’s perspective, where mastering something that you were not raised with gives you a different perspective.”

The house has given him the freedom to be himself, and while constantly linking back to Schiaparelli, “there are also things that are uniquely and personally mine”, Roseberry says.

He initially launched into her madcap world with moulded tailoring and an evaluation of how he would approach the figure, something that has been part of his creative process since enrolling for life drawing classes at the age of 16. This focus on silhouette also relates to the famous hourglass body of Schiaparelli’s signature perfume bottle for Shocking, with a tape measure creating a trompe l’oeil detail that Roseberry has since reproduced on jackets.

However, it is the eye-catching jewellery featuring parts of the anatomy that has made people sit up and notice. His gold body castings, he admits, caused a visceral reaction in the fashion world. Referencing the oversized gilded jewellery of the 1930s, 1970s and 1980s, they include cast ears, eyes, teeth and nose jewellery, gold toes on black shoes and lung necklaces, which Bella Hadid famously wore with a scooped neckline dress to the Cannes Film Festival last year. They were the first surrealist tropes that could live in a modern environment – however, he is conscious that the joke can wear thin, so expect something fresh and different in seasons to come.

Overall, Roseberry has taken a very restrained approach to the extraordinary legacy that Elsa Schiaparelli left behind.

“It’s about wearing the heritage in the archives very lightly because they can become a great burden, I think. Visually they are so striking and so specific and it’s not even silhouette driven, it’s even more specific than that,” explains Roseberry.

He wants to rouse the same thrill at seeing something new that Schiaparelli did in her day, without endlessly mimicking her work. “I don’t think that is what she would have wanted today.”
The exhibition features not only Schiaparelli’s archives, but also the work of designers such as Azzedine Alaïa and John Galliano, who were inspired by the couturier, and of course pieces from Roseberry’s collections, including autumn/winter 2022, which featured the black velvet corset and pants with hand-painted flowers that Cate Blanchett wore to the Venice Film Festival last month, and Lady Gaga’s famous inauguration outfit.

Roseberry has only been at Schiaparelli three years, but beyond Lady Gaga, he has chalked up several memorable red carpet moments with stars such as Adele, Cardi B, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Carey Mulligan. His personal favourite looks were Lady Gaga and Bella Hadid’s, along with the black leather body-conscious dress Beyoncé wore the night she set the record for the most Grammys won by a singer.

“I am so honoured to be part of that,” Roseberry muses, but also describes the exhibition opening, sharing a platform with the great Elsa Schiaparelli, as a “mind-blowing moment that will go down in memory”. It has been a remarkable trajectory for the man from Texas.