Button

Elsa Schiaparelli|Jean Clemént|Roger Jean-Pierre

1938 · glass, metal, plastic · Costume Institute

These intriguing ornamental buttons are strikingly similar to the form of the bottle of the perfume "Sleeping," introduced for Schiaparelli's summer 1940 collection. The bottle was shaped like a lighted candle emerging from a floral-shaped base and perhaps these ornamental buttons were a precursor to the final perfume bottle design, or a stylized version of it. Schiaparelli used her buttons as an avenue for creative expression. They were often in unexpected shapes made of unusual and avant-garde materials such as the plastic, glass, painted metal alloy and wire of this example. They complemented her suit jackets with the perfect dose of Surrealist commentary.

Artist

Elsa Schiaparelli|Jean Clemént|Roger Jean-Pierre

Date

1938

Medium

glass, metal, plastic

Culture

French

Department

Costume Institute

Credit line

Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of Arturo and Paul Peralta-Ramos, 1955