Elsa Schiaparelli

If reading 'Shocking Life' taught us anything it is that you don't have to accept the unacceptable. Elsa Schiaparelli certainly had a flair for circumnavigating obstacles... At the Paris Exhibition of 1937 she refused to use the 'hideous' mannequins, suggesting instead a simple wooden figure. Denied on the grounds that it would 'be conspicuous' she lay the 'dreary mannequin, naked on some turf and piled flowers over it to cheer it up' before stringing up a washing line and hanging up all her clothes... panties, stockings and all! Selvedge has a new icon...