When done well, haute couture has a dreamlike quality all on its own. It’s magic when you can hardly believe that what you’re looking at was made by human hands. That’s when you know you’re witnessing something truly special. This season, Daniel Roseberry took that insight to heart, and as a result, he freed himself from the big-S Surrealist Schiaparelli-esque techniques that he had been doing up until this point in order to attract so much attention to reestablishing the identity and visibility of the brand.

Before the presentation, he made the following statement: “I wanted this season to feel much more free, spontaneous, and painterly.” “The goal of the most recent collection was to completely evacuate the space,” the designer explained. That is exactly what took place. I believe that the goal was to really try to retain the focus on the collection while also delving further and deeper into the skills that we wanted to display.

Therefore, this was the time when Roseberry ventured into terrain that was uniquely his own. At this point, he was cutting and draping sculptural, asymmetrical shapes out of black and white fabrics while also experimenting with artisans to blur the lines between clothes, needlework, jewellery, and collages of textiles.

It would be irresponsible not to mention “what happened,” which was the fake taxidermy lion head that caused a ruckus on the internet in January, producing a farrago of controversy that unwittingly overshadowed the remainder of what Roseberry was attempting to get through as a couturier. “What happened” occurred in January. “It was a lot more than we had bargained for,” he said, sounding as though he is still analysing the benefits and drawbacks of igniting a worldwide reaction. “It was a lot more than we had bargained for,” “I had to stop everything because it was making me so tired. However, it was also a significant event for the home itself. It was fantastic. I cherished every single second of it.”

But for this season, he took a different approach, drawing his conceptual inspiration from the long-standing collaboration between the House of Schiaparelli and many artists. It veered into some quite remarkable loose and handcrafted effects. Observing the disordered and paint-splattered workspace of Lucian Freud inspired the creation of a colourful ‘nude’ outfit consisting of an uneven mosaic of paillettes that were sewed onto chiffon. Roseberry came to the conclusion that a brilliant Yves Klein blue may be found at the other extreme end of the hue spectrum as a result of thinking about the iconic gold embroidery designed by Schiaparelli. Therefore, the brilliant blue that appeared, scrolled into a skate skirt, continued into spray-painted body paint, and landed somewhere in coils of painted wooden jewellery was a direct result of this.

Detaching himself from the pattern of rehashing an excessive number of the trompe l’oeil body-part house codes that he has been working with ever since he arrived at Schiaparelli was a brilliant decision on Roseberry’s side. Roseberry has earned the right to pursue new ventures because of the economic success he has brought to the house with the jewellery and accessories he designs and sells. After all, haute couture ought to be a place where innovation and the exploration of the boundaries of what is possible are encouraged.

The Collection