Walking into the V&A’s galleries feels less like entering a fashion exhibition and more like stepping into a carefully orchestrated dream.
The exhibition is titled Schiaparelli:Fashion Becomes Art — a proposition that unfolds not through theoretical exposition, but through the narrative of objects arranged across space and light, inviting visitors to arrive at that understanding themselves.
As V&A Director Tristram Hunt remarked at the media preview, Schiaparelli grew up immersed in books, philosophy, mythology, and astronomy, and came to regard clothing as “an arena for ideas”. For her, design was never merely a profession — it was an artistic practice.
走進 V&A 的展廳，彷彿不是進入一場時裝展，而是進入一段被精心鋪陳的夢境。
展覽名為 《夏帕瑞麗:時尚成為藝術（Schiaparelli:Fashion becomes Art）》，這一命題並未以理論闡述展開，而是通過展品在空間與光影的陳列敘事中讓觀眾親自感受。
正如V&A館長 Tristram Hunt 在媒體預展中所說，Schiaparelli 成長於書籍、哲學、神話與天文學交織的環境之中，她將服裝視為 「思想的競技場（an arena for ideas）」。設計對她而言，並非單純的職業，而是一種藝術實踐。
Shifting Walls: A Gateway into the Surreal 變化的背景牆：進入超現實的入口
One of the exhibition’s most distinctive features is its use of moving imagery as backdrop.
The entrance carries a strong sense of ceremony. At its centre hangs a portrait of Schiaparelli, flanked on either side by walls of ever-changing images. Scenes dissolve slowly, new forms rising to the surface like memories shifting through time. In that moment, it is difficult not to feel a certain illusion take hold — as though one is crossing the threshold into an enchanted world.
At the far end of these images stand her most iconic works: the Skeleton Dress and the Lung Necklace. They loom there like gatekeepers — a visually arresting opening act that silently declares: fashion is not merely clothing here, but a proposition. Hunt described these designs as “a theatre for the unconscious, the irrational, the marvellous”.
Within this framework, the body becomes a stage upon which the subconscious develops, and elegance acquires a faintly dangerous edge. This sets the tone for the entire exhibition. Ghostly silhouettes flicker across a wall bearing the Eiffel Tower, producing a disorienting sense of temporal displacement. For a fleeting moment, it feels as though the spirits latent within these garments are slowly stepping out of their cases. Elsewhere, the backdrop is rendered as sunlight filtering through windows and leaves — shifting, as though time itself is passing — while these canonical works of fashion endure as something eternal.
這次展覽很獨特的地方是採用了會變化的影像作為背景牆。
展覽的入口極具儀式感。中央是一幅夏帕瑞麗的肖像，兩側則是不斷變化的影像牆。影像緩慢褪去，新的內容漸漸浮現，如同記憶在時間中反覆顯影與消散。這一刻，觀眾很難不產生某種錯覺——彷彿正在踏入一個充滿魔法的世界。
而影像盡頭，是她最著名的作品：肋骨禮服與肺葉項鍊。它們如同守門者般矗立——既是視覺上的震撼開場，也在無聲地宣告：「時裝在這裡不只是衣物，而是一種命題。」Hunt 將這些設計稱為「一個為無意識、非理性與奇妙而設立的劇場（a theatre for the unconscious, the irrational, the marvelous）」。
在這種語境中，身體成為潛意識顯影的舞台，而優雅也帶上了一絲危險的鋒芒。整個展覽也是在這種基調下徐徐展開。牆面上，埃菲爾鐵塔與幽靈般的人影交疊閃現，使觀眾產生一種時空錯位的體驗。恍惚之間，彷彿這些服裝中潛藏的精神正從展櫃中緩緩走出。幕牆上的光影模擬陽光穿透窗格與葉隙，持續流轉，似乎時間在流動，而這些經典的時尚之作卻在流動中愈發接近永恆。
A Turn in the Path: The Body’s Experience of Spatial Rhythm 柳暗花明：空間節奏的身體體驗
The exhibition’s rhythm is established not through the works alone, but through the body’s own movement through space. Two low corridors serve as pivotal sensory transitions.
The first is a white passageway that delivers a sudden sense of release after quietude. Having bent to pass through a comparatively narrow and intimate space, visitors emerge to find an enormous white gown erupting before them — like light breaking open all at once, the sensation of turning a corner into the unexpected washing over them entirely.
The second, a black corridor, slows the body almost instinctively, stilling the mind and drawing the eye toward fourteen richly detailed jackets displayed with care. Thirteen coats arc outward in a subtle choreography around a commanding centrepiece designed by Daniel Roseberry— a substantial jacket that preserves Schiaparelli’s characteristic exaggerated silhouette while incorporating elements of Surrealism and Cubism. Eyes, lips and noses drift across the breadth of its sleeves, while gilded anatomical forms and swaying fringes lend the garment a genuinely magical presence.
展覽的節奏，並不只通過作品本身建立。其中兩條低矮的走廊，成為身體感知的重要轉折。
一條是白色通道，帶來一種安靜後的突然釋放。當觀眾彎身穿過狹窄的低矮空間後，一件體量驚人的白色禮服驟然出現，如同光線在瞬間爆發，柳暗花明的震撼撲面而來。
而另一條黑色通道則截然不同，步伐在此不自覺地放慢，心境也隨之沉靜下來，不由自主地仔細觀看14件細節豐富的上衣。十三件外套呈弧形展開，圍繞著一件由Daniel Roseberry設計的重量級作品，這件外套在保留了夏帕瑞麗標誌性誇張廓形的基礎上，融入了超現實主義與立體主義的元素，眼睛、嘴唇、鼻子漂浮在寬闊的袖面上，金色的胸部與流蘇讓這件衣服更加魔幻。
Behind the scenes of Schiaparelli/ Fashion Becomes Art at V&A South Kensington (c) Jamie Stoker
A Displacement of the Gaze: The Watched Watcher 視線的錯位：被觀看的觀看
A small and quiet “displacement” in one gallery subtly transforms the relationship between viewer and viewed.
Seen from the preceding room, a seated mannequin positioned on the floor stands out among the rows of upright figures. Moving into the next gallery, one discovers that it has been placed atop a wall — as though silently watching the gowns and visitors arrayed before it.
In that instant, the act of looking becomes complicated. Visitors are no longer simply subjects gazing upon works; they find themselves drawn into the exhibition’s own narrative.
Elsewhere, the Skeleton Dress — so arresting at the entrance — reappears in another space, this time facing away. From the back, one can trace the clear line of its spine, and sense that through the display window before it, the dress is somehow looking back.
This subtle psychological shift brings a quiet realisation: fashion does not only shape the image of the body — it shapes the very way the body is seen. Fashion becomes here a kind of apparatus for how the body is perceived and imagined. You are looking at the landscape, and the landscape is looking at you.
展廳中有一處小小的「錯位」，悄然改變了觀看的關係。
從前一展廳望去，在整齊站立的人形模特之間，一個坐在地面的背影顯得有些不同。待觀眾繼續前行，到達下一個展廳時，才發現它被安置在牆頭之上，彷彿在默默注視著對面的一眾禮服與來往的觀眾。
這一刻，觀看開始變得複雜。觀眾不再只是凝視作品的主體，自身似乎也悄悄進入了展覽的敘事之中。
另一處亦然，入口處曾令人震撼的肋骨禮服，在另一空間以背面再度現身。從背面不只可以辨認出它那清晰的脊柱線條，更可以看到它彷彿透過面前的展示窗口靜靜回望著觀眾。
這種心理上的輕微錯位使人意識到：時裝不僅塑造身體形象，也在塑造觀看身體的方式。時裝在此成為一種關於身體如何被感知與想象的裝置——你在看風景，而風景也在看你。
Behind the scenes of Schiaparelli/ Fashion Becomes Art at V&A South Kensington (c) Jamie Stoker
Fashion Becomes Art: Cross-Media Experiments in Modernity 時尚成為藝術：跨媒介的現代實驗
Given the exhibition’s title, Schiaparelli’s collaborations with modern artists form its most essential passages. The galleries present her working relationships with multiple figures, making vivid how, in the first half of the twentieth century, the boundary between fashion and modern art was scarcely defined at all.
Her exchanges with Dalí, Jean Cocteau, Man Ray, and others transformed her designs into the most bodily expressions of Surrealist practice. The Skeleton Dress, the torn gown, the shoe hat, the Lobster Dress — all became signature works, bringing the humour and absurdity, the irreverence and creativity of modern art into the context of haute couture.
Dalí’s celebrated image of a lobster placed upon a telephone unwittingly prefigured another possibility: art entering everyday life. Fashion here was no longer merely a symbol of social identity, but an experimental field for imagination and the unconscious.
既然展覽以「Fashion Becomes Art」為題，夏帕瑞麗與現代藝術家的合作也自然成為了展覽最核心的篇章。展廳中呈現了夏帕瑞麗與多位藝術家的往來，使觀眾切身感受到：在二十世紀上半葉，時尚與現代藝術之間幾乎不存在清晰的邊界。
與 Dalí、Jean Cocteau、Man Ray 等人的互動使夏帕瑞麗的設計成為超現實主義最具身體性的實踐。骷髏禮服、撕裂長裙、鞋帽、龍蝦長裙都成為了她的代表作，將現代藝術的幽默與荒誕、叛逆與創造力帶入了高級定制的語境。
達利將龍蝦置於電話之上的著名圖像也在無意間預示了藝術進入日常生活的另一種可能性。時裝在此不再只是社會身份的象徵，而成為關於想象力與潛意識的的實驗場。
The Continuation of an Artistic Life: Proposition Over Style 藝術生命的延續：命題而非風格
The exhibition’s closing section places historical works alongside designs by current creative director Daniel Roseberry. Roseberry has grasped the essential spirit of Schiaparelli: the most memorable fashion moments are not just about silhouette, but about Proposition.
His designs — with their sculptural volumes and anatomically inflected gold embellishments — carry forward the founder’s untamed sensibility, restoring intellectual tension to the house within the contemporary haute couture landscape.
Looking back across the whole exhibition, Fashion Becomes Art does not simply elevate fashion to the status of art. It illuminates a creative logic that continues to unfold. By transforming the body into a vehicle for ideas, Schiaparelli made clothing a site where imagination and the unconscious could become visible.
Within the V&A’s galleries, that energy is reactivated. The constantly shifting imagery, the subtly displaced spatial rhythm, the dramatic modes of display — all draw visitors, without their quite noticing, into the magical world she constructed.
When they leave, beyond whatever memory of a particular design lingers, something more enduring remains: an awareness that fashion matters not only for the forms it invents, but for the ways it continues to challenge how we understand the body, reality, and the imagination.
展覽的終章將歷史作品與現任創意總監 Daniel Roseberry 的設計並置呈現。Roseberry 深諳夏帕瑞麗的核心精神：最令人難忘的時尚，從來不是外在形式，而是命題本身（the most memorable fashion moments are not just about silhouette, but about Proposition）。
Roseberry 的設計以雕塑化的體量與解剖學式的金色裝飾，延續了創始人的不馴氣質，使夏帕瑞麗這個品牌在當代高級定制的語境中重新獲得思想的張力。
回望整個展覽，《夏帕瑞麗:時尚成為藝術》並非簡單地將時裝抬升至藝術的層級，而是揭示了一種仍在持續展開的創作邏輯——夏帕瑞麗通過將身體轉化為觀念的載體，使服裝成為想象力與潛意識得以顯現的場域。
在 V&A 的展廳之中，這種能量被重新激活。不斷流轉的影像、微妙錯位的空間節奏與戲劇性的陳列方式，使觀眾在觀看的過程中不自覺地沉浸於她所構建的「魔法世界」。
離開展覽時，觀眾帶走的或許不只是對某件經典設計的記憶，還有一種更為持久的意識：時尚之所以重要，並不只在於形式的革新，而在於它持續挑戰我們理解身體、現實與想象的方式。
Text by 撰文 x Shoran Jiang
