Schiaparelli opens the dances at Paris Couture Week The Maison gets close to the sun but does not burn its wings

If Icarus embodies a tragic hero with a fate shortened by boundless pride and disobedience that proves fatal, the Couture Spring 2025 collection by Schiaparelli, titled Icarus, is anything but grim or distressing—in fact, quite the opposite. Proud, yes, and boundless certainly, but dark and sinister? Not at all. Presented yesterday, the collection created by Daniel Roseberry opened this week’s Paris Haute Couture with thirty-three looks that each, in their own way, embody the opulence, richness, and elegance of the 20th century, reviving a baroque aesthetic tinged with modernity. The collection draws inspiration from ribbons from the 1920s and 1930s, serendipitously discovered by the creative director in an antique shop. These are ancient ribbons, hidden and forgotten by history with the arrival of the German occupation in France.

This collection is a homage to the ancient, to history, and all the richness it encompasses, but also to the new. Or rather, to the celebration of the ancient within the new. Tired of seeing modernity always and only associated with simplicity, Daniel Roseberry proposes a rise to ever higher levels of execution and vision. Indeed, «why couldn’t novelty also be elaborate, baroque, sumptuous?» If Icarus burned his wings in the pursuit of perfection, Roseberry at Schiaparelli seems unafraid of drawing ever closer to the sun. And even though each new collection edges dangerously closer, his wings, unlike those of the tragic hero, don’t seem ready to fall apart.