Bloom: A Story of Fashion Designer Elsa Schiaparelli

So began the life of innovative fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli. Writer Kyo Maclear (Virginia Wolf, Spork and others) and artist Julie Morstad, collaborators on Julia, Child, have teamed up again to bring Schiaparelli’s life and contributions to children’s attention. The picture book is beautifully realized in art deco style, and the shocking pink and other colours Schiaparelli invented to make her fashion designs stand out from others. It’s heartening that authors and publishers are making an effort to popularize the contributions of many innovators, especially women, who have never received the credit due to them.

Schiaparelli’s life started out badly, according to Maclear. She wasn’t a boy, which is what her parents had hoped for, and her mother considered her ugly (brutta). Her mother’s rejection supposedly motivated young Elsa to see beauty outside her family’s home, in fruits and flowers, inspiring her to experiment with ideas, much to her parents’ consternation.

I run home to see the family gardener.
The next day I plant flower seeds in my ears, mouth and nose.

… By nightfall, I am breathless and sick.
It takes two doctors to remove the seeds.
My plan flops, but a different kind of seed is planted …

Schiaparelli was a rebel, expressing herself through fashions even though she didn’t sew herself. She ended up in Paris, then London and New York, leading the Bohemian lifestyle of the 1920s and having a brief marriage that produced a daughter.

Nothing is permanent, but one thing remains constant: I keep making clothes.

Maclear writes through the first person, drawing the reader into an intimacy with Schiaparelli. Maclear uses rich vocabulary to stimulate a child’s imagination in the vibrant way that her subject must have seen the world. There are gaps in the narrative, however, that would complete the story of Schiaparelli’s life and work.

For example, her mother’s disapproval is not really felt throughout. Her Uncle Giovanni saw her beauty, although the contrast to her mother’s attitude is not adequately developed to stir an emotional response. The reader is told she shortened her name to “Schiap”, but a later picture shows the sign above her first shop with the name “Schiaparelli”, without explanation.
Some individuals, such as Gaby Picabia, are named, but their importance to Schiaparelli is not elaborated (Picabia was a Dada and Surrealist artist). What happened to Schiaparelli during World War II? Did Schiaparelli’s daughter, depicted as a little girl drawing like Picasso, follow her mother into the world of art or design?

These gaps in the information reduce the impact of what was obviously an interesting life.

I say No to the expected.

I say YES to my childhood dreams and the colours that once fed me: scarlet, mauve, periwinkle, green …

Prolific writer and illustrator Julie Morstad (When Green Becomes Tomatoes, This is Sadie and others) chooses watercolour, gouache and pencil crayon hand stencils (called pochoir) on a white background to represent Schiaparelli’s bold, irreverent designs and to show how people envisioned themselves in that era. Through her drawings, children can see that Schiarapelli’s designs shape fashion and art even today - through jumpsuits, wraparounds, hats in the shape of shoes (!), and more. Colour was special for Schiaparelli. The variety of pink flowers surrounding Schiaparelli’s portrait on the cover and on the shocking pink endpapers are gorgeous and make this a book that wants to be picked up. So it’s surprising that the pictures of Schiaparelli’s dresses in the book are in muted shades and don’t display the colours listed in the text above.

Bloom will augment a school or public library collection and will be a good gift for young girls especially. With supplemental information about the times and her life as well as pictures of Schiaparelli’s often serendipitous, surprising designs, Bloom will teach children about an individual who broke new ground despite difficult circumstances. It may inspire young artists, young designers and young innovators to follow their dreams, too.