WHEN PRADA MEETS SCHIAPARELLI

Recently I had a chance to see the latest Costume Institute exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York- Schiaparelii and Prada:Impossible Conversations. The exhibition featured not only spectacular collections of two designers but also a film, created by Baz Luhrman, showing an imagined conversation between Elsa Schiaparelli and Miuccia Prada. Two designers, two different visions of fashion and most of all a generation gap-designers were born nearly 60 years apart. 
In a section of the exhibition called Waist Up/Waist down, it is shown how Schiaparelli focused her designs on woman's upper body, when Prada always put attention on the hips and feet. Prada's perfection in trousers, skirts and shoes is her well-known signature. She says that the most important things in life consider lower part of a body, such as walking, sex, giving birth. I think it's an extremely interesting approach to fashion. On the other hand Schiaparelli's creations reflected the café society of the 1930s, when women wanted to show what could be seen when seated at the table. That's why her spectacular embroidered pieces and hats could have been worn only by confident women. Her probably most famous shoe hat created with Salvador Dalí shows how ahead of her time she was as a designer. 
It's an extraordinary exhibition,definitely worth seeing, not necessarily for fashion/Prada lovers only.

Famous shoe hat designed with Salvador Dali

http://www.metmuseum.org/impossibleconversations

Photos by Milena