Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art at the V&A

Everything you need to know about Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art at the V&A

📍 Where: Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington
📅 When: Opens 28 March 2026
🎫 Price: weekdays £28, weekends £30, free for V&A members

In a long line of fashion inspired exhibitions and workshops, the Victoria and Albert museum celebrates fashion with yet another stellar exhibition. This exhibition explores the bridge between surrealism and design, introducing the bold work of Elsa Schiaparelli (1890-1973) opening on 28 March 2026.

Ankle-length coat of black silk jersey with facial profiles forming a rose-filled vase, Elsa Schiaparelli, Jean Cocteau and Lesage, London, 1937 (c) Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art takes you on a journey through Schiaparelli’s transformative influence on fashion over the last decade, tracing back to the 1920s. Elsa Schiaparelli’s bold work challenges conventional ideas of how to dress through her surrealist imagination combined with an elegance. The exhibition offers a glimpse into the world of a designer who used traditional tailoring but with unexpected materials and playful distortions, and who collaborated with leading Surrealist artists including, among others, Salvador Dalí and Jean Cocteau.

What to expect from Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art

Expect an exhibition that traces how Schiaparelli transformed fashion into a daring artistic language, bringing together over 200 garments, accessories, jewels and other items to reveal her creative force.

Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art – exhibition highlights

Standout pieces of the exhibit capture the designer’s wit and Surrealist imagination, including the Tears Dress (1938) with veil, as well as the Skeleton Dress (1938) – an uncanny gown with quilted, padded skeletal bones – both created with Salvador Dalí. Another highlight is the celebrated Evening Coat (1937), designed with Jean Cocteau, where the surrealists' interest in the double image is expressed by two embroidered profiles facing each other, with the negative space showing a tall vase of roses. The items on display also include the famous Choker by Schiaparelli from the Pagan collection (1938).

White Tears dress with veil on the left and black Skeleton Dress on the right both designed by Elsa Schiaparelli and Salvador Dalí.

These centrepieces sit within a wider selection of modern pieces, items and photographs showing Schiaparelli Haute Couture of the 2020s – these contemporary designs are by the current director of Italian-owned haute couture house Schiaparelli – Daniel Roseberry – whose garments and accessories continues Shiaparelli’s spirit of wit, subversion and boundless invention.

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Why you should visit Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art at the V&A

It is the UK’s first Schiaparelli exhibition which explores the designer's legacy blending haute couture with art and turning them into wearable pieces. She was one of the most influential couture visionaries of the 20th century who challenged fashion standards and left her mark on fashion history.

Inside Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art – what not to miss

I recently had the chance to explore Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art at the V&A, and here’s what truly captivated me:

Step into the exhibition and you’re immediately wrapped in its atmosphere. The gentle thrum of music blending with the soft chatter of visitors creates a kind of cinematic backdrop. All around, catwalk footage and vintage newspaper clippings are projected across the walls, immersing you in the surrealist buzz of Paris and making the whole space feel wonderfully alive.

On the left a cream coloured blazer with golden palm embroidery sticking out of the garment and on the right a dark blue blazer with star and planet and star sign embroidery in silver and gold.

Make your way towards the garments and take a moment to really look closely at the embroidery. The craftsmanship is astonishing - some of the most intricate, sculptural needlework I’ve ever encountered. Layers of texture reveal themselves the longer you stand there, with bows popping up as a playful signature and nature‑inspired motifs morphing into fantastical shapes. It feels as though each piece is mid‑transformation, telling its own story.

There’s so much to see, but what lingered with me is the depth of it all. Every garment feels intentional, expressive, and rich with meaning. Walking through the exhibition, I felt as though I’d stepped into a world where fashion slips into myth - where imagination, art, and couture fold into one another.

On the left is the famous black skeleton dress where the resemblance of ribcage is gold embroidered and on the right is a white/cream colour corsage dress with wavy tutu character.

How to book tickets

Tickets for Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art can be booked directly via the V&A. Visitors can choose from timed entry slots. Booking is available through to the exhibition’s closing date in November 2026.

For more cultural inspiration, explore our weekend guide and month-by-month round-ups covering new exhibitions, food and drink inspiration and unmissable theatre.

How to get to the Victoria and Albert Museum:

🚇 Underground: The nearest Tube station to the V&A is South Kensington (Circle, District and Piccadilly lines), which is a five-minute walk away. Gloucester Road (Circle, District and Piccadilly lines) is 10 minutes' away.
🚍 Bus: Various bus routes stop close to the museum.
🚲 Bike: There are Santander Cycles docking stations on Exhibition Road and Thurloe Place.