Schiaparelli’s Fall 2025 Couture Manifesto Charges Into the Future
Designer Daniel Roseberry kicked off Paris Couture week with a collection that riffed on many of Schiaparelli’s greatest hits.
In the world of Schiaparelli creative director Daniel Roseberry, fashion and couture cross the line between art and performance, from the runway right down to the gilded, surrealist accessories. Such was the case for Schiaparelli’s fall 2025 show, which took place during a rainy Parisian morning at the Petit Palais on July 7. The collection was comprised of white, black, red, and silver glamazons, plus lush fabrics that came in waves: cascading ruffles, sculpted bustiers that mirrored the Texan designer’s horse saddles growing up, and silver sequin gowns laden with their own forms of chunky silver jewels. Using surrealism as the beginning thread, silhouettes were layered up in trompe l’oeil fantasies, from glimmering starburst motifs to metallized suits of shining, modern amor. Guests were sent a golden seashell pendant as an invitation to the show, which was titled “Back to the Future.”
The whole concept of the collection surrounded this notion of past and present. There were tons of references to founder Elsa Schiaparelli’s iconic designs, including a riff on the Apollo of Versailles cape the designer created in 1938. In the show notes, Roseberry compared the career legacies of Elsa Schiaparelli and Coco Chanel—two contemporaries and infamous rivals who each changed fashion, and the way women dress. “Chanel was interested in how clothes could be of practical use to women; Elsa was interested in what fashion could be,” Roseberry wrote.
Some of the most exciting pieces in the collection had a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it, mesmerizing, textural effect. A floor-length red gown laced up the front had padding on the back; another was covered in a universe of mini paillettes. “I wanted there to be more tension this time,” Roseberry said of fall 2025 backstage. “A more electric vision, in a way. I didn’t want it to be just beautiful.” The designer said he considers this collection part of a trilogy (including his most recent “Phoenix” and “Icarus” collections) and plans to restructure his creative process going forward. “It weirdly feels like there’s something in the air, like we’re on the precipice of something major. I’m not talking just geopolitical, but even in our own industry. This felt like a swan song, in a weird way. I wanted it to feel like a bit of a farewell. I want to rediscover and restructure everything.”
One of the most influential parts of the collection was the mix of old and new, which Roseberry also discussed in the show notes by proposing a world without screens—no AI, no sacrificing history, nor an epic, archival fashion moment. It’s a witty combination, from which the designer frequently pulls. “I don’t want you guys to know what you’re going to expect,” Roseberry added. “This is the kind of fashion that I grew up loving. Every season, it was a different character, a different manifesto, a different challenge to the eye—and sometimes it was not as successful as others.” Perhaps the greatest thing about today’s couture is that one can’t exist without the other: the old-world techniques are fed by technology. And as for those aforementioned creative changes, there’s no doubt Roseberry will keep us guessing until the very end.
