Photos: Yannis Vlamos / Indigitalimages.com
It’s official: Schiaparelli and Marco Zanini are parting ways. Earlier this week, it was reported that the Italian designer was unhappy at the French couture house. This morning, the Diego Della Valle-owned company released an announcement that Zanini would be leaving, effective immediately, after presenting just two couture collections for the label.” The House of Schiaparelli is looking towards its future while transcending the aesthetic codes created by Elsa Schiaparelli,” the statement read. “It follows a dynamic where a contemporary spirit meets its founder’s daring personality.” It went on to state that a new creative director will be announced soon.
“I was so afraid about touching the legacy, because camp is a trap that is always around the corner with Schiaparelli,” Zanini told Style.com in July. “But I realized if I wanted to find the look, I cannot avoid going there, so why don’t I go there full-on?” After a somewhat more tentative excursion in January, that’s exactly what he did in July: whipping up a 1930s evening dress in a “Central Park” print of squirrels and rats, cutting fur coats with shoulders out to there, making sure his pink was as shocking as Schiap’s always was, and otherwise indulging his eccentricities. It wasn’t safe, and some criticized it for being too literal, but it was engaging, in a way that has gone missing from the couture collections lately.
There was talk as early as March of Schiaparelli making the move into ready-to-wear, but that never came to pass.
Zanini was at Rochas for five years before joining Schiaparelli.
