Sonnet Stanfill on Elsa Schiaparelli

TODAY on the GWA podcast: curator SONNET STANFILL on ELSA SCHIAPARELLI! Sonnet is the Senior Curator of Fashion at the V&A, where she has worked since 1999. Stanfill has curated numerous highly acclaimed exhibitions, such as New York Fashion Now, Ballgowns: British Glamour since 1950, and the landmark The Glamour of Italian Fashion (2014), which traveled to several museums across the US. She has published and lectured widely on various aspects of fashion design and holds an MA in the history of dress. But the reason why we are speaking with her today is because she has just curated the monumental exhibition, Elsa Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art at the V&A, which charts the fearless life and daring work of the artist, designer, surrealist, influencer and general pioneer of who the modern woman was and what she could be. A creator of surrealist wonderlands with her fantastical gowns with floating eyes, lips, and lobsters, woven jackets embellished with astrological symbolism and mirrors inspired by Versailles, plus carrot-shaped buttons with embroidered cauliflowers, Schiaparelli – who also made jewellery and perfumes and wrote extensively – was one of the most inventive people of the 20th century. Born in Rome in 1890, she fled her conservative life for London, New York, and later Paris, where she befriended the surrealists and built a business on a scale hardly any woman had done before. Elsa Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art, V&A South Kensington THIS EPISODE IS GENEROUSLY SUPPORTED BY THE LEVETT COLLECTION: //

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Sonnet Stanfill on Elsa Schiaparelli is an episode from The Great Women Artists by The Great Women Artists Podcast.

This episode is 00:47:39 long.

This episode was published on Apr 7, 2026.

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