From Schiaparelli to the present day: Between past and present in matters of fashion and Surrealism

Authors

Abstract

The popular and media success of Surrealism has remained alive throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, even after its career as a vanguard movement ended. The fashion world has assimilated the influence of Surrealism in a special way, particularly where iconography is concerned. This article examines the strong links between fashion and surrealist iconography using pieces of the designer Elsa Schiaparelli as a cog to connect the past with the present. We see how art is capable of transcending temporal, spatial and conceptual boundaries to become an object of consumption. Although this results in the popularization and diffusion of art, it also undermines art’s first intention as purely creative, iconoclastic and a convention-breaker, innate to Surrealism, by converting its identifying motifs into serial elements and/or stripping them of their capacity to amaze.

Keywords

Surrealism, fashion, Elsa Schiaparelli, contemporary art, 21st century

Author Biography

Laura Muñoz Pérez, Universidad de Salamanca

Departamento de Historia del Arte / Bellas Artes

Published

2018-12-04

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