Victoria and Albert Museum · South Kensington
Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art
The UK's first exhibition on Elsa Schiaparelli, tracing the surrealist designer's influence from the 1920s to today and the house's revival under Daniel Roseberry.
The first pair you meet: Elsa Schiaparelli's 1938 Skeleton Dress, made with Salvador Dalí, its padded ribs and spine swelling out of black silk, beside Daniel Roseberry's 2021 gown with a necklace of gilded brass lungs, the one Bella Hadid wore at Cannes. The Skeleton Dress is the only known surviving example.
From there it runs from a 1927 bow-knot sweater through the surrealist years, with Dalí's Lobster Telephone beside the lobster-print dress, to a final room of Roseberry's couture. That's 100 ensembles and 50 artworks, plus perfume bottles and a lot of buttons.
Time Out called it "some of the most beautiful clothes you will ever see", but found the present-day sections "a bit advert-y". AnOther's critic felt the surrealist pieces have lost some of their shock over time. Tickets are £28 on weekdays and £30 at weekends, and the V&A recommends booking ahead.
Look for
The Skeleton Dress and the Lung Dress
Look for the opening pair: Dalí's quilted bones from 1938 facing Roseberry's rhinestone lungs from 2021.
The lobster, twice
Dalí's Lobster Telephone sits beside the lobster-print dress Wallis Simpson wore; Dalí wanted to add real mayonnaise to it, and Schiaparelli said no.
The Tears dress
A pale dress printed with rips that look like torn flesh, designed with Dalí in 1938 and shown with its veil.
The buttons
Time Out singled out the fastenings: peanuts, acorns and buxom mermaids.
Shocking, bottled
Leonor Fini's bust-shaped bottle for the Shocking perfume leads a run of novelty bottles shaped like champagne bottles and night lights.
Good for
- First-Timers
- Nerding Out
- Out-Of-Town Guests
Skip if
You're hoping for Kylie Jenner's lion's-head gown: Time Out noted it isn't in the show.
Free in the same building
- Ceramics GalleryNearly 30,000 pieces spanning Neolithic pots to Chinese porcelain, Italian maiolica, Delftware, and Sèvres — the world's largest ceramics collection.
- East Asia Collection (China, Japan & Korea)Chinese, Japanese, and Korean art and design from jade carvings and lacquerware to samurai armour and Buddhist sculpture.
- Fashion Collection3,000 years of dress from ancient Egypt to today — one of the world's most comprehensive fashion collections, free to explore.
- Furniture Gallery600 years of furniture-making, from Tudor masterpieces to 20th-century design icons, including the Great Bed of Ware (1590s).
- Jewellery Gallery3,500 pieces spanning 3,000 years — from ancient brooches to Art Deco tiaras — in the William and Judith Bollinger Gallery.
- Medieval and Renaissance GalleriesSculptures, stained glass, tapestries, and illuminated manuscripts from 300–1600 AD across 10 interconnecting galleries.
- Photography CentreThe UK's largest permanent photography galleries across seven rooms — 1840s daguerreotypes to contemporary digital practice.
- The Cast CourtsFloor-to-ceiling plaster casts of Renaissance masterpieces including Michelangelo's David and the full height of Trajan's Column.
