Schiaparelli managed to turn fashion into an art form with innovative designs and concepts such as creating a jacket with plastic hands in place of buttons. Schiap’s forward-thinking approach to design caused her rival Gabrielle Chanel to deride her as “that Italian artist who makes clothes.” Sounds like someone was totes jealz.

Throughout the twenties and thirties, Schiap was friends with several Surrealist artists including Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp and Jean Cocteau, but it was Dalí who would have the greatest influence on her.

He would also have an influence on Coco Chanel as the two allegedly had an affair while Dalí  was still married. Yeah, someone was super jealz.

Elsa Schiaparelli’s career in and influence on fashion will be highlighted this summer when Elsa Schiaparelli and Miuccia Prada: On Fashion debuts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute. But until then, here’s how Schiap and Dalí changed the face of fashion.

In 1936, inspired by Dalí's painting Anthropomorphic Cabinet, the two created suits and jackets with bureau-drawers as pockets.

Then in 1937, their "Lobster dress," featuring -- you guessed it -- a giant red lobster painted onto a white silk gown was made famous when Cecil Beaton photographed noted homewrecker Wallis Simpson in it for Vogue.

Inspired by a photo of Dalí balancing his wife's slipper on his head, that same year saw the debut of the infamous "Shoe Hat," a black felt number in the shape of a woman's pump with a heel in Shocking Pink -- another Schiaparelli innovation.

Dalí designed a trompe l'oeil print for an evening gown that simulated torn flesh in 1938. The "Tears Dress" also had actual tears strategically cut out to reveal an illusion of fur on the reverse side.

Utilizing trapunto quilting -- a puffy, decorative form of embroidery -- to create padded ribs, spine and leg bones, Schiap and Dalí struck again with the "Skeleton Dress," a highlight of her 1938 circus-themed collection.

Shoe Hats off to ya!

Lisa Chaney, author of Coco Chanel: An Intimate Life, dug up some serious dirt on the legendary designer — one assumes after rolling her over in her grave. In the bio, which comes out in November, Chaney claims Coco was a bisexual drug user who had an affair with a married Salvador Dalí.

Chaney allegedly waded through the Swiss Federal Archives to prove that Chanel also had an affair with a Nazi spy. In an email to WWD, the author’s publicist states, “Whether Chanel was aware of this is unknown, but after that war she lived in neutral Switzerland for a while, to avoid any proceedings against her.”

Quel scandale! Though I can’t wait til they inevitably make a movie out of this book. Standing alongside Audrey Tatou‘s Coco Before Chanel will be Lindsay Lohan‘s Coco After Rehab.  [WWD]

Jerry Hall always looked like Jerry Hall – that incredible head of hair, that flawless complexion, cheekbones from which the world hangs – but it wasn’t until she took LSD that she even considered modelling as a viable path:

‘ “A boy gave me a quarter of a tab. I didn’t know what it was!” she says. “I actually had never taken drugs and was very nervous. And I never did take drugs [afterward] ever, ever. But I locked myself in the bathroom and spent the whole night staring in the mirror, going, ‘Oh, my God.’” She runs her fingers over the contours of her face. “All of a sudden, I thought, Wow!” ‘

Similar story, I once took shrooms and realized that I could taste colors. Red tastes like pennies.

Jerry, along with her sister Terry, ended up in Paris, where they roomed with a young Grace Jones. Jerry and Grace would put on cabaret shows for their friends, which I’m hoping involved a “Who’s On First”-type skit performed with Jerry straddling Grace, who would be on all fours wearing nothing but a saddle and a strap-on horse tail.

Sisters reunited, and it feels so good, c.1985

Hall met Dalí at a club that she and Grace would frequent. He asked her to come to Spain to film her wearing only a white veil. She turned down the famous artist’s request because she had promised her dear old mother she wouldn’t pose nude. They just don’t make ‘em like that anymore. Unless you count her pillowy-lipped daughter with Mick Jagger, Georgia May.

Which I don’t.

Jerry, however, is very proud that Georgia May and Lizzy have followed in her long, graceful strides and shares this anecdote:

“I gave them all these films to watch. Marlene Dietrich, Bette Davis, Barbara Stanwyck, and Mae West. Actually, they both shot with Karl Lagerfeld, and he was saying to them, ‘Okay, be Bette Davis in The Letter.’ And they knew what to do! He said, ‘Oh, my God. I never work with girls who know what I’m talking about! Your mother trained you so well.’ So funny!”

Jerry Hall sounds like the best mother ever. Meanwhile, Karl Lagerfeld could tell me to be Bette Davis in anything and I’d be ready at the drop of a hat.

Read more about Jerry Hall’s  life, loves and locks in Harper’s Bazaar.

Photos: Harper’s Bazaar

Robert Pattinson lands the cover of the April edition of GQ mag, and I have to say that the images speak for themselves. Inside, he talks about his rumored girlfriend and his latest role as Salvador Dali in Little Ashes.
LINKAGE: Just Jared

Leo Burnett

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'Persistence of Time' Dali

Leo Burnett

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'The Temptation Of Saint Anthony' Dali

So…not only is Dali being used as inspiration to advertise cars, but he is also having a stab at investment companies. Under the tagline “Don’t be lost in the weird world of investment”, Brazilian agency Leo Burnett used two of Dali’s most well know paintings as reference in adds for a investment company.

via Wicked Halo

Leo Burnett

Dali

Volkswagen has yet again won the cool vehicle contest. The company’s latest promotion, done by German agency DDB, looks to the Surrealist art movement for the new Polo Blue Motion. Magritte and Dali’s work has inspired the ad campaign that bears the slogan “Absurdly low consumption.” It’s not often a car ad really grabs my attention like fashion ads do. Congrats, Volkswagen, for turning my head.

Thanks again Wicked Halo

The photo pictured above actually stirred up quite a bit of controversy, critics crying that the shot in the editorial wasn’t “original.” The original image was actually, shot by Philippe Halsman, a 20th century photographer and Salvador Dali inspired surrealist. Well original idea or not, I love this fashion inspired interpretation! Isn’t this what re-creation is all about? 

Thanks Wicked Halo!

…It can if its in a Spring 2009 collection!

We’ve all heard the cliche defense of the fashion-obsessed saying, “Fashion is a form of art!” The usual response is always soaked thoroughly with sarcasm and followed with a turn of the back. But upon reviewing the latest in trends from top designers, and some from those who have yet to burst out on the runway scene, it seems that today designers may be drawing their inspiration from, well…art!

Take a look at the footage from Martin Margiela’s Spring 2009 collection. The faceless models are reminiscent of Salvador Dali’s Mirage painting, in which the human figures are also, faceless. The extreme and exaggerated silhouettes of the jackets are comparable to the angles found in Dali’s Premonition of Civil War. The Surrealist movement in art no doubt played a role in the development of Margiela’s collection. It was that same avant-garde attitude and intriguing yet aesthetic awkwardess that catapulted artists like Salvador Dali and Max Ernst to the walls of MoMA in New York, and is now walking the runways of the world.

Need more? Okay… Remember the Spring 09 of Gaspard Yurkievich in Paris? The use of color in his line was most memorable to me. It was a perfect blend of greys and whites with splashes of color. The same color scheme is reflected in Charles Demuth’s My Egypt. Even the way the lights and camera flashes hit the prism-like shapes of the shoes was reminiscent in the cubist-influenced Demuth.

Designers need not look farther for ideas to inspire and enlighten them than a Modern Art Museum, or at the very least, a library/internet. Do you want an art-inspired look without having to wait for the sample sale? New and upcoming designer Jon Wye can hook you up with his Andy Warhol (pioneered the pop-art movement and cultivated fashion icons like Edie Sedgwick) tribute, in the form of a silkscreen tee shirt ($36, jonwye.com). Now breathe in that fresh new trend smell….and relax!

WRITTEN BY ARIEL (cultindie member)