Designer Daniel Roseberry: The Missionary from Dallas

The missionary from Dallas

Dropped out of studies, no tailoring apprenticeship, zero knowledge of French:

The Texan designer Daniel Roseberry breathes new life into haute couture at Schiaparelli.

November 8, 2022

TEXT: Alex Bohn

It's a bit like church on Thanksgiving Sunday: Ears of wheat that will later prove to be glycerin-soaked ostrich feathers bobbing gracefully on wagon-wheel-sized hats, lush sunflowers and lavender blossoms, sculpted from hand-painted silk and leather, sprout from plunging cleavages, and succulent , golden grapes, enough for a whole vine, are earrings and top at the same time.

In addition, some golden crosses, which are worn as jewelry, as well as delicate stuffed white doves.

The religious references are so numerous it's almost impossible to tell who's wearing them - '90s supermodels like Eva Herzigova and Carolyn Murphy.

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No wonder, the designer of this latest couture show for the upcoming fall is the son of a priest.

The Texan Daniel Roseberry makes no secret of his origins, on the contrary, he even goes one better: At the start of his fashion show in the Paris Musée des Arts Décoratifs he lets church bells ring and calls the collection "Born Again" in reference to the belief of the born again Christians to which his parents belong.

High art.

The white blouse is not based on a sewing pattern but was draped by one of the couture tailors.

However, Roseberry doesn't design Christian couture - that would be a whole new genre - but innovation awaits you: Because the Texan is, to stay with religious terminology, a kind of reformer of haute couture.

Since he took over as director of the traditional French house Schiaparelli three years ago, he has been designing fashion that does justice to the surreal spirit with which the Italian founder, Elsa Schiaparelli, shaped the house almost a hundred years ago.

In doing so, he transforms the otherwise rather delicate and hyper-feminine haute couture into a kind of fashion superpower: In the spring of last year, for example, he designed a short mini dress in bright fuchsia – christened “shocking pink” by Elsa Schiaparelli at the time – shaped like a muscle suit , a suit with an artificial six pack and biceps.

What a contrast to the ethereal gowns of the big couture houses like Dior, Valentino and Chanel!

In the same season he also offered a breastplate made from the finest green leather - incidentally, a cast of the original Pascal and Pascaline tailor's dummies that Elsa Schiaparelli was working on at the time, with a physique that only constant use in the gym can mold.

The very earthly Kim Kardashian, who wore it with a green silk skirt to Christmas,

Naive nature.

The silk blossoms for the autumn and winter season should look like they were freshly picked from the meadow.

The sound of the church bells is followed by the film music for Star Wars, Indiana Jones and Jurassic Park at Roseberry.

His models walk down the aisle, where the spectators are seated, as if in a church, in moderate steps, which reinforces the impression of a sacred procession and gives the dramatic outfits additional dignity: black and midnight blue velvet, which go with almost sparse and ultramodern skirts, corsets and narrow dresses meets lush, free-flowing volumes.

Eva Herzigova, for example, wears a white silk blouse that flows around her like a cloud.

"A lot of guests have told me after the show that they cried," says Daniel Roseberry, "I think it's because they were blown away by the artistry of the designs.

You can see how many hours of work and how much craftsmanship went into them.” Roseberry herself is basically modest and always points to the expertise of the couture tailors and the team spirit from which the design at Schiaparelli is born.

But he also sounds proud.

If he moves his audience to tears, it also means that he has achieved what he is looking for: not to create clothes, but special moments that go beyond fashion.

Because Daniel Roseberry is not only a designer, he is also a master of ceremonies of pop.

"I want to dress super strong women, culturally important figures."

DANIEL ROSEBERRY

It is hardly surprising that shortly after Kim Kardashian's armor appearance, the grande dame of pop, Lady Gaga, asked him for an outfit for her appearance at the inauguration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in January 2021. Of course, she had not only asked Roseberry, for Gaga flew a plane loaded with designs from all the Paris couturiers to New York.

But she chose that of the Texan boy who ended up in Paris.

Because Daniel Roseberry offered her just the right mix of pomp, pop and patriotism.

A dress in the best tradition by Elsa Schiaparelli, jacket at top, robe at bottom – an innovation unseen in the first third of the 20th century – dark blue cashmere at top, a voluminous skirt at bottom made of red silk faille with a four-meter-long train.

Not to forget:

First address.

In the atelier at Place Vendôme 21, Daniel Roseberry doesn't wear a suit, but denim from head to toe.

Photo: Christophe Coënon

"I want to dress super strong women, culturally important figures," Roseberry said of his debut 2019 collection, thinking of rapper Missy Elliott and collective TLC, singer Gwen Stefani and actress Sigourney Weaver in Alien.

Today they all barge in on him, Beyoncé, Adele, Carey Mulligan, Jessie Buckley, Janicza Bravo - not a week goes by without an A-list celebrity appearing in his creations.

The founder would have liked that.

“Just like Daniel Roseberry today, Elsa Schiaparelli attracted the celebrities of her day,” says Marie Sophie Carron de la Carrière, curator of the exhibition Shocking!

The surreal worlds of Elsa Schiaparelli”, which is currently taking place at the Musée des Arts décoratifs in Paris, “Marlene Dietrich, for example, and Mae West, who were just as famous as Lady Gaga is today.”

Born in Rome in 1890, Elsa Schiaparelli lived for a time in New York from 1914 because of love, and there she got to know and appreciate the Dadaists and Surrealists.

Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp, the Picabia couple, Jean Cocteau, Elsa Triolet and Meret Oppenheim were among her friends, and their work inspired the fashion that she created from 1927, more by accident than by design.

She had neither studied fashion nor was she a trained dressmaker, but she combined pragmatic design - her first piece was a simple knitted jumper trimmed with a bow - with dark wit.

She playfully transferred elements of surrealism to fashion: her skeleton dress, which appliqued the ribs to the dress using trapunto, an Italian quilting technique, became a hit, as did a pink shoe worn as a hat.

Lively dialogue.

Until January 2023, the originals by Elsa Schiaparelli will be juxtaposed with the designs by Daniel Roseberry in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris.

There are some parallels between Schiaparelli and Roseberry, one of which is a naivety that inspires freedom.

Because when Daniel Roseberry was entrusted with the Schiaparelli house in 2019 by Diego Della Valle, the owner of the Italian fashion group Tod's, the Texan had no clue about haute couture.

He dropped out of New York's Fashion Institute of Technology to work for eight years for Thom Browne, a New York designer known for his precise tailoring and subversive ideas.

Incidentally, Roseberry still does not speak French to this day.

At the historic, elegant and elitist Place Vendôme, Schiaparelli's headquarters, he sometimes has to feel like an alien.

In New York, Roseberry, who grew up in Dallas, had fully embraced the local lifestyle: working hard and leading an intense social life.

In his new adopted home, he clearly misses the weekends when New Yorkers take their lives out on the streets, always keen to meet as many acquaintances and friends as possible, always looking for exchange and inspiration.

"Parisians are much more domestic," he says.

Next cosmos.

Lavish jewelery in the most diverse forms is part of Schiaparelli's DNA.

But Roseberry draws creative capital from its otherness in Paris.

“My work here is self-care,” he says, reflecting on his inner world, a skill he developed from an early age.

According to Roseberry, his deeply religious, conservative parents always supported him in his creative development, even when he began to only draw women's clothes at the age of eleven.

But Roseberry only revealed his homosexuality during his studies and frankly admits that he still has a close relationship with his parents to this day, but that they don't always agree on this point.

What used to be his Dallas nursery is now the upper floor of Place Vendôme, where Roseberry sits at the same table as Schiaparelli once did – designed by Meret Oppenheim, with crow's feet for legs.

Anyone who sees him might think that he is actually cultivating his strangeness.

Although you don't hear anything of the Southern Drawl of the native Southerner when he speaks, his choice of clothes nevertheless ensures that his roots are omnipresent: With extremely neatly fitting blue jeans and sneakers, he wears the traditional uniform of the American worker .

Nimble fingers.

This robe is embroidered with Daniel Roseberry's first sketches, in gold of course.

And Roseberry isn't even trying to delve into the Paris fashion world.

"After the show I went home, went to bed and watched Star Wars," he says.

“There is a stark contrast between the glamorous world my fashion is in and the reality I live here.

Far from home, away from the people I love.”

Maybe Roseberry emphasizes difference so much because he thinks contrasts are important.

He talks about an article he recently read in the American magazine "The Atlantic".

"It was about the downside of success," he says, "which can even leave behind brain damage.

Because the ego is so intensely nurtured, one loses touch with reality and loses the very skills that previously helped one become successful: the ability to collaborate with others, the ability to step into a crowded room, and the ability to dominate Recognizing a mood, for example.” If he really felt at home in the ivory tower of couture, his life would be much less full of contrasts.

"I try really hard to stay in touch with reality," he says. "Contrasts help me stay grounded."

It's quite possible that he, the reformer of haute couture, is also looking for a connection to his childhood in Dallas, a time when the world was still magical.

"A place of security, younger, more carefree, less knowing and conscious," he says, "pleasantly simple." The naturalistically reproduced flowers and animals in his collection are an expression of this longing for a simpler view of the world.

“That creative innocence is missing in haute couture today,” he says, “when I look at the most important houses, they are luxury machines.

That may be good for the balance sheet and acceptable for international customers.

But they are also devoid of any creative vision.

I am convinced that people who love fashion and who devote their lives to it have a longing for fashion that allows them to

Great radiance.

Model Rouguy is one of designer Daniel Roseberry's muses.

It may be that Roseberry does not share his parents' conservative Christian views, but he is familiar with the principle of faith: he believes in fashion.

This makes him the perfect ambassador for the venerable couture house, which took on Chanel at its best, declined in importance after World War II and from the 1950s slept in a slumber that Roseberry's predecessor, Marco Zanini, who was creative director of the Maison from 2014 to 2019, couldn't change anything.

"I want to create couture that is unseen in its artistry yet aggressively digital in its focus."

DANIEL ROSEBERRY

The fact that he dreams of fashion from and for the child's gaze does not mean that he is immediately naïve.

"Daniel Roseberry spans the arc to Elsa Schiaparelli's surrealist legacy," says the curator of the exhibition at the Musée des Arts décoratifs, Marie Sophie Carron de la Carrière, "his work is disseminated via social networks.

In this way, the young generation that discovers his collections through the media learns about Schiaparelli's heritage and codes.” In Roseberry's words: “I want to create couture that is unseen in its artistry and at the same time the most aggressively digital in its orientation.”

Daniel Roseberry speaks a language that everyone understands, especially younger generations.

For his fashion, he is not only an ambassador, he is a missionary.

Rouguy Faye / The Claw

Ann-Kathrin Obermeyer

Miki Matsunaga

Yi-Han Jen Photo Assistance

Sarah Willmeroth Styling Assistance

Arina Kucheieva

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