Elsa Schiaparelli: A Biography

Secrest portrays the life of Elsa Schiaparelli, an influential fashion designer of the twentieth century whose designs have become norms within the modern clothing industry, but who has been forgotten by the masses in the way that her contemporaneous designer and competitor, Coco Chanel, was not. It is high time that a biography of this exceptional woman—one who was strong and unique both in spirit and in her creations—is remembered.

Secrest is unintimidated by Schiaparelli’s successes and formidable exterior as a designer of note, and does not hesitate to delve into the personal life of this remarkable woman. She captures Schiaparelli in her many forms from a lonely, Italian school girl to a suspected anarchist residing in New York City with her spiritualist, con-man husband, to her later, and final reincarnation as an astounding leader of haute couture whose business model and creations were so uniquely attuned to the times that it became more successful in the midst of the great depression. Not to be missed, this smashing sensation of a biography will alter the way readers perceive and wear clothing.