Outfits created by Christian Lacroix for one-off collection will not go on sale – at any price
Schiaparelli has never been an ordinary fashion house. Elsa Schiaparelli was a fashion designer whose clothes grew out of art, not dressmaking. Salvador Dali described her studio in the 1930s as "the beating heart of Surrealist Paris".
Her famous putdown for her lifelong rival, Coco Chanel, was to call her "that milliner", a reference to what she saw as Chanel's prosaic approach to the issue of what women wear.
Yves Saint Laurent, a great admirer of Schiaparelli and her work, lists "her particular charms" as "her brutality, her arrogance, her self-possession, disdain, storms of anger, odd whims" in his foreword to her biography.
So the return of the Schiaparelli name to Paris fashion was never going to be an ordinary comeback. To be true to the brand, it had to be Shocking – the name Schiaparelli gave to her signature colour, a violent blue-toned pink which Saint Laurent described as having "the nerve of red".
The first subversive note was that the 18 outfits shown at the Musée Arts Decoratifs were created by Christian Lacroix, a legendary fashion designer, but one whose association with Schiaparelli is limited to this collection, and ends now. The second was that these clothes are for display only and not available to buy, at any price. Order books will not be opened at the house this season, however much money is offered by the super rich clients of haute couture.
The third subversive note was that even now – six years after Diego Della Valle, owner of the Italian Tod's group, bought the Schiaparelli house and announced their attention to relaunch – there is no official confirmation of who the Schiaparelli designer will be, although it has been widely reported that Marco Zanini of Rochas will be given the job.
This is, by any standard, an unconventional way to relaunch a brand – which, of course, is exactly the point. And in keeping with the unorthodox mood this was not one comeback, but two. This was Christian Lacroix's first fashion week appearance since his label was forced to close four years ago. Lacroix has since forged a stellar career designing costumes for opera and ballet, curating exhibitions, and designing hotel interiors, and proclaims himself happy to have moved on from the catwalk; many in the industry, however, still mourn the loss of his vividly coloured, richly evocative catwalk shows.
The Schiaparelli installation was held in the wood-panelled rooms of the Musée Arts Decoratifs where Lacroix presented his last catwalk show. On that day, the windows overlooking the Louvre courtyard rattled in the rain, and his adoring seamstresses sobbed backstage. Four years later, the sun streamed through the windows onto the 18 outfits Lacroix had designed for Schiaparelli, and he was welcomed as a returning hero.
The appointment of Lacroix to create this curtain-raiser for the Schiaparelli brand was inspired. There are natural synergies between Lacroix's aesthetic and that of Elsa herself, particularly in gloriously eccentric colour combinations (billiard green with Shocking pink, paprika red with electric blue) and flamboyant silhouettes untramelled by narrow metropolitan ideas of chic. (Lacroix, a native of Arles, told Womenswear Daily this week that he and the Rome-born Elsa Schiaparelli "were really the same, from the Mediterranean, Latin people fascinated by Paris.")
Lacroix initially produced 99 sketches, each based in some way on a design or an idea of Schiaparelli's, and then worked with a team of 12 in the Schiaparelli atelier to produce a final 18 outfits.
The cage which stood at the door of Schiaparelli's Place Vendôme boutique was reconstructed in bamboo at the entrance to this display. Virtual hummingbirds on mini iPads fluttered among the silk cherry blossom, a neat modern update on Elsa Schiaparelli's obsession with birds, bugs and insects.
On the clothes themselves, displayed on mannequins on a golden carousel, Lacroix paid homage to Elsa the surrealist with a golden bug brooches menacing the hip of a tailored jacket. The sharp points of a corset neckline were modelled on an upside down heart. Lacroix echoed the deeply artistic nature of Schiap's studio, by abandoning any notion of wearability: one crinoline skirt in this collection is made up of so many layers that it weighs almost 40kg.
But he also signposted the ways in which Schiaparelli's vision as an emancipated woman in the 1930s was daringly modern and practical: the zippered jumpsuit she pioneered was revived by Lacroix, as were dresses with deep pockets, an innovation she championed.
Schiaparelli have indicated that the announcement of a designer is imminent. From next year, they will present clothes commercially both on the elite haute couture schedule and on the ready-to-wear catwalks. The headquarters at 21 Place Vendôme will house a Schiaparelli boutique once again.
The relaunch is unlikely to be easy. Almost sixty years have passed since the Schiaparelli name was last on the catwalk and while the name is still revered in fashion history it has taken on a dusty academic note. To most consumers, it means little.
But Elsa Schiaparelli herself is proof that doing things differently can pay dividends. In 1937 she conceived the perfume, Shocking, whose name, fragrance, pink packaging and bottle – modelled on Mae West's tailor's dummy, it was the first in the form of a woman's body – caught the public imagination.
Shocking became an important source of revenue for her business, allowing her the freedom to design cocktail hats modelled on pork chops in collaboration with Salvador Dali, and make a silk dress with a larger-than-life hand-painted lobster on the skirt for Wallis Simpson's trousseau. Lacroix has got Schiaparelli off to a flying start – it remains to be seen whether Della Valle can keep the dream alive.