Schiaparelli drew inspiration from and collaborated with the Surrealists, creating a number of shocking designs that subverted traditional ideas of dress. RMIT's Ricarda Bigolin says: ' was a time in between World Wars where there were a lot of ideals and optimism in the world, fashion had this playful edge … women started dressing very differently at this time, there were less restrictions on the female body.

Italian-born, Paris-based designer Elsa Schiaparelli (aka Coco Chanel's arch-nemesis) was so obsessed with jaw-dropping fashion that she made 'shocking pink' her signature colour from the 30s onwards. They were like: 'What is this?' It didn't read for American women at this time who just wanted to look pretty.' 1930s: Schiaparelli's shocking surreal designs She caused the kind of media ruckus that money can't buy, says Brayshaw: 'On an American tour in 1913/1914, the Americans panned. While Deslys didn't walk any runways, she did take these avant-garde designs, influenced by cubism, futurism, and modernism, to theatres around the world while on tour. ( Supplied: European Film Star Postcards) 'Stage productions were a way in which the latest fashions were disseminated in a spectacle,' says Brayshaw. They included a cloak made from an entire leopard skin. Paquin was among a number of 'haute couturiers were mixing with the Parisian artistic avant-garde and creating new ways of seeing and being in the world,' Brayshaw says.ĭeslys's gowns, designed by French designer and fashion illustrator Etienne Drian for Paquin, were touted as 'liable to create much discussion'. In the 1910s, French dance hall star and international celebrity Gaby Deslys collaborated with Parisian haute couture house Jeanne Paquin on a series of so-called 'Gaby gowns'. 1910s: Gaby Deslys takes outrageous designs on tour

Jenner's runway-adjacent moment is just the latest example in a long history of spectacle on and around the runway shocking moments that speak to larger changes in politics, society, art and technology. But high fashion can also be a way to talk about contemporary issues, says Dr Emily Brayshaw, a theatre costume designer and lecturer in design and fashion history at the University of Technology Sydney.įor instance, the Schiaparelli lion's head was made from synthetic materials: ' this high-fashion history of luxury and fur, but really translates it in a wholly contemporary way … it's getting us to question our relationship to animals and the environment,' Brayshaw told ABC Arts.

Femmes by Michelle Olley