At Schiaparelli, the invitation speaks volumes. For the Fall 2026 collection, guests received a gilded ring cast in the shape of a finger – a small, strange object that set the tone for what Daniel Roseberry had planned. The show itself delivered on that promise. At the start of the year, Roseberry said that while couture would lift off, ready-to-wear would go deeper. He went deep.
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| 🎭 The collection revolves around illusion and duality, inspired by a Giacometti sphinx brooch. 🧵 Roseberry pushes trompe-l’œil tailoring using nearly invisible tulle panels. 🐾 Bags with bird claws and heels topped with sculpted animals define the mood. 👗 One skirt features 10,200 compact discs and 46,000 beads. 🌍 The show arrives before a major Schiaparelli retrospective at the Victoria & Albert Museum. |
The Carrousel du Louvre was the epicenter of Paris Fashion Week in the 1990s and early 2000s, but brands abandoned it for more distinctive venues. Roseberry brought it back to life with a raised, podium-style runway, the kind only seen in archival footage from that era now. For a younger generation of editors, it was a curiosity. For those who had been there the first time around, it felt like a homecoming.
The collection took its title from a brooch designed by Alberto Giacometti for Elsa Schiaparelli: a sphinx, half human and half animal. That duality ran through every look. Roseberry opened with a sharp, masculine three-piece pantsuit with the collar popped and pleated trousers that fell cleanly to ankle boots with gold-tone brass heels sculpted like faces. As the show progressed, the sphinx concept gathered momentum, culminating in wilder, more feral pieces. One example was a skirt suit built from wadding-stuffed hosiery with deliberate padding at the shoulders, breasts, and hips, channeling the spirit of British artist Sarah Lucas.
Roseberry has always been skilled at trompe l’œil, and here he took it to the next level. Nearly invisible tulle panels were spliced into cable-knit sweaters, tailored trousers, and bugle-beaded evening gowns, making the garments appear to float against the skin. A denim coat printed with fur motifs had chunky shearling sleeves. A knit sheath dress featured a solarized body print resembling an X-ray or a photograph. Aran knits clung in strips only because of the underlying illusion. One top and skirt were constructed from unspooled cassette tapes and crushed compact discs.
The accessories reinforced the collection’s feral logic. Handbags grew gilded bird claws. Mule heels were topped with hissing kittens or snarling Doberman puppies rendered in resin and felt with unsettling realism. Roseberry’s Schiaparelli client does not want classic. She does not want boring. She has made that much clear.
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The house has been dressed well lately. Teyana Taylor wore Schiaparelli to the Golden Globes. Bad Bunny appeared at the Grammys in a Schiaparelli outfit. Demi Moore wore a haute couture piece to the SAG Awards. Roseberry keeps one eye on the red carpet, and it shows. However, the ready-to-wear collection was also influenced by the late Alber Elbaz. The draped and wrapped silhouettes with Fortuny-like pleating were inspired by Elbaz’s technique of constructing intricate garments from a single seam. Roseberry credited Elbaz directly.
The glossier pieces shimmered under the dramatic, pooled runway lighting. Liquid silk satin skirts ended in beak-like points. Laminated treebark satin coiled around the body in sculptural folds. Then there was the skirt that stopped the room: a long, silver column made of 10,200 laser-cut compact discs, nearly 46,000 beads, and silver rhinestones, as well as more than 700 meters of antique silver cord. The black jacket paired with it was embroidered with cassette tapes. This level of craftsmanship sounds exhausting to describe, yet it looks effortless on the body.
Schiaparelli is weeks away from the opening of a major retrospective at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. The exhibition will feature Elsa Schiaparelli’s archive as well as Roseberry’s own work. This type of institutional recognition often causes designers to become cautious and reverent. Roseberry appears to have taken the opposite approach. He is having more fun now than when he started.
That much was obvious on the runway. The show had energy, a quality that can be cultivated but not faked. Roseberry has spent enough time at Schiaparelli to understand the house’s identity and has enough confidence to push its boundaries. The sphinx, a contradictory creature caught between worlds, is an apt symbol for the brand’s current position.
