Evening gloves

Elsa Schiaparelli

1935–40 · silk, gelatin · Costume Institute

An illustration of Schiaparelli's surreal sensibility, these gloves worn by Millicent Rogers are decorated with gelatin discs reminiscent of chain mail armor or scales, and are both seductive and forbidding at the same time. Gloves were a perfect palette for Schiaparelli's more avant-garde, Surrealist designs, and often featured prominently in her collections. She designed gloves with red fingernails, blue veins and pairs of two different colors to be worn together. Rogers, a devoted client, was a willing participant in Schiaparelli’s audacious and inventive design aesthetic, and almost 200 examples by Schiaparelli from her wardrobe reside in the Brooklyn Museum collection.

Artist

Elsa Schiaparelli

Date

1935–40

Medium

silk, gelatin

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, 1954