It’s perhaps the most anticipated fashion exhibition for 2026 – Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art at London’s V&A, which opens on 28 March 2026.
Ticket pre-sales are now open and advance booking recommended, especially for visitors to the city.
It’s the UK’s first exhibition on Elsa Schiaparelli which spans the 1920s to today, celebrating the innovative designer’s influence.
Schiaparelli possessed a vibrant artistic sensibility. Turning ordinary items into innovative clothing, accessories and jewellery, she created the most memorable fashions of the day. Her couture house, the most discussed of interwar Paris, redefined standards of style and definitions of beauty.
Choker by Schiaparelli, Pagan collection, Fall 1938. Photograph © Emil Larsson. Main Image: Evening coat, designed by Elsa Schiaparelli and Jean Cocteau, 1937, London, England © 2025 ADAGP DACS Comite Cocteau, Paris. Photograph © Emil Larsson
The exhibition will comprise over 200 objects, including garments, accessories, jewellery, paintings, photographs, sculpture, furniture, perfumes and archive material, and traces the fashion house’s groundbreaking origins and its evolution under current creative director Daniel Roseberry.
The V&A holds some of Elsa Schiaparelli’s most radical designs. The exhibition will feature the V&A’s ‘Skeleton’ dress and the ‘Tears’ dress, along with a hat shaped to look like an upside-down shoe, all conceived in collaboration with Salvador Dalí. Artworks by Pablo Picasso, Jean Cocteau and Man Ray will also be on display.
Skeleton Dress, designed by Elsa Schiaparelli and Salvador Dalí, 1938. V&A © 2025 Salvador Dali, Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, DACS. Photograph © Emil Larsson
The exhibition will also reference the popularity of Schiaparelli’s designs for film and theatre productions.
New research undertaken by art and fashion curators focuses on the creative collaborations and output of founder Elsa Schiaparelli.
It places her at the nexus of innovation, a key figure within a stellar sphere of fashion, art and performance which spanned the cities of Paris, London, and New York in the years between the two world wars and up to her retirement in 1954 and highlight the history of a female entrepreneur and showcase her celebrated, yet little-seen garments from the history of fashion.
Designer Elsa Schiaparelli wearing black silk dress with crocheted collar of her own design and a tuban. Photo by Fredrich Baker/Condé Nast via Getty Images
The exhibition will be the first of its kind to spotlight the London branch of Schiaparelli, its dynamic and independent clients and the founder’s own involvement in the satellite location.
“Elsa Schiaparelli’s fearless imagination and radical vision redefined the boundaries between fashion and art,” says Delphine Bellini, CEO of Schiaparelli.
“This exhibition celebrates her enduring influence through iconic collaborations with 20th-century masters and a pioneering fusion of creativity and commerce. With its unparalleled collections, expertise in fashion and design, cultural reach, and ability to bridge tradition and innovation, the Victoria and Albert Museum offers the perfect setting to showcase her legacy alongside Daniel Roseberry’s creations, which carry her surrealist spirit forward blurring lines with bold, sculptural designs that both honour and reinvent her vision for a new century.”
Schiaparelli Haute Couture Fall Winter 2024. Photo © Giovanni Giannoni. Photo courtesy Patrimoine Schiaparelli, Paris
The exhibition is on at the V&A South Kensington from 28 March to 8 November, 2026.
