{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O15665"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O15665/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2025PD4584/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2025PD4584/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"low","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2025PD4584","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2025PD4620","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2025PD4610","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2025PD4609","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2025PD4608","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2025PD4607","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2025PD4606","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2006BB4598","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2006AU6039","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2006BG5197","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2021MU9622","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":null},"record":{"systemNumber":"O15665","accessionNumber":"T.395&A-1974","objectType":"Evening ensemble","titles":[{"title":"The Circus Collection","type":"named collection"}],"summaryDescription":"Elsa Schiaparelli (1890–1973) was one of the world’s revolutionary fashion designers. Her  couture house, one of the most discussed of interwar Paris, redefined fashionable taste and   perceptions of beauty in the 20th century. With no formal training, she launched her first fashion collection in 1927. Her bold, often audacious, haute couture creations soon made her the designer   of choice for a confident clientele. Within five years, Maison Schiaparelli employed 400 staff  who created over 7000 couture garments each year.  \n\r\nOften designing to confront and shock, Schiaparelli’s radical approach embraced the new and experimental, resulting in clothes that were resolutely modern. Perhaps more than any   fashion designer of the era, Schiaparelli urged textile manufacturers to bring her their   newest and best materials. At the same time, Schiaparelli’s impact extended beyond fashion and she possessed a vibrant artistic sensibility. Embedded within Europe’s creative   avantgarde, she positioned her work in direct dialogue with art, design and performance. Her collaborations with artists, including Salvador Dalí, Jean Cocteau and Meret Oppenheim, led to some of her most radical and memorable designs for clothing, accessories and jewellery. In 1954, Schiaparelli officially retired and closed the doors of her couture salon. She left an enduring mark on the world of fashion and a creative legacy that spanned the cities of Paris, London and New York.\r\n\nThe ensemble was part of Schiaparelli's Summer 1938 Circus collection. The garments featured many novelty effects and motifs, including prancing horses, performing elephants, acrobats, tents and clowns. The dark purple crêpe evening dress has a draped culotte hem which can be worn either as a skirt with both feet through one opening or with one foot through either opening.","physicalDescription":"Evening ensemble consisting of a bright pink, fitted jacket of silk twill with a repeating pattern of rearing horses woven in two shades of blue, their saddles, manes and plumes picked out in metallic thread, with four acrobat buttons, and a purple evening dress with draped culotte hem which has openings for the feet.","artistMakerPerson":[{"name":{"text":"Elsa Schiaparelli","id":"A2375"},"association":{"text":"designer","id":"x36960"},"note":""}],"artistMakerOrganisations":[],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[{"text":"silk (textile)","id":"AAT243428"},{"text":"metal","id":"AAT10900"}],"techniques":[{"text":"sewing","id":"AAT53658"}],"materialsAndTechniques":"Silk twill, fastened with cast metal buttons","categories":[{"text":"Fashion","id":"THES48957"},{"text":"Evening wear","id":"THES48999"},{"text":"Clothing","id":"THES48975"}],"styles":[],"collectionCode":{"text":"T&F","id":"THES48601"},"images":["2025PD4584","2025PD4620","2025PD4610","2025PD4609","2025PD4608","2025PD4607","2025PD4606","2006BB4598","2006AU6039","2006BG5197","2021MU9622"],"imageResolution":"low","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"SAINS","id":"THES276095"},"free":"","case":"FIG047","shelf":"","box":""},{"current":{"text":"SAINS","id":"THES276095"},"free":"","case":"FIG047","shelf":"","box":""}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"Jacket","id":""}],[{"text":"Dress","id":""}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"No","note":""},{"apprise":"","note":""},{"apprise":"","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[{"place":{"text":"Paris","id":"x29068"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"February 1938","earliest":"1938-02-01","latest":"1938-02-28"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"associatedObjects":[],"creditLine":"Given by Miss Ruth Ford","dimensions":[],"dimensionsNote":"","marksAndInscriptions":[],"objectHistory":"Elsa Schiaparelli (1890–1973) was one of the world’s revolutionary fashion designers. Her couture house, one of the most discussed of interwar Paris, redefined fashionable taste and perceptions of beauty in the 20th century.  With no formal training, she launched her first fashion collection in 1927. Her bold, often audacious, haute couture creations soon made her the designer of choice for a confident clientele. Within five years, Maison Schiaparelli employed 400 staff who created over 7000 couture garments each year.  \r\n\r\nOften designing to confront and shock, Schiaparelli’s radical approach embraced the new and experimental, resulting in clothes that were resolutely modern. Perhaps more than any fashion designer of the era, Schiaparelli urged textile manufacturers to bring her their newest and best materials. At the same time, Schiaparelli’s impact extended beyond fashion and she possessed a vibrant artistic sensibility. Embedded within Europe’s creative avantgarde, she positioned her work in direct dialogue with art, design and performance. Her collaborations with artists, including Salvador Dalí, Jean Cocteau and Meret Oppenheim, led to some of her most radical and memorable designs for clothing, accessories and jewellery. In 1954, Schiaparelli officially retired and closed the doors of her couture salon. She left an enduring mark on the world of fashion and a creative legacy that spanned the cities of Paris, London and New York.  \r\n\r\nRef. Paris Centre de Documentation de Costume, <i>Schiaparelli, Album no 19</i>, 1938, p.41 (although jacket has a different pattern)\n\r\nGiven by Miss Ruth Ford and worn by her mother\n\n\nPublished on pg. 94 Modern Fashion in Detail\r\nPlacement of fabric animates the horses –appearing to dance around the jacket.  There are also horses on the interior collar facing. Horses very similar to ornamental buttons on maroon Circus Collection jacket with marble decoration\r\n\tPhoto Notes: \r\n\tButton detail:  method of closure – spiral hooks, cast metal buttons\r\n\tButton closure detail:  hardware with hooks attaching acrobat ornamental buttons with screws\n\nT.395A-1974\r\nDhoti dress (Purple crepe evening dress with Dhoti Skirt)\r\nCould be worn both as a conventional skirt (legs through bottom opening) or as a dhoti (legs through side holes)\r\n              Photo Notes: \t\r\n\tRight leghole: conventional hem Schiaparelli’s hems rarely looked like this\r\n\tCovered zipper: has a placket and hooks and eyes that cover it up\n\r\nJan G. Reeder, Curator, The Costume Institute, The Metropolitan Museum of Art\r\nTaken May, 2011, Compiled September, 2011\n\r\n\r\n\r\n","historicalContext":"","briefDescription":"Evening ensemble consisting of silk twill dress and jacket, 'The Circus Collection', designed by Schiaparelli, Paris, February 1938.","bibliographicReferences":[{"reference":{"text":"<i>Fashion : An Anthology by Cecil Beaton</i>. London : H.M.S.O., 1971","id":"AUTH354373"},"details":"no. 226","free":""}],"production":"","productionType":{"text":"Haute couture","id":"THES48861"},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[{"text":"horse","id":"x30117"},{"text":"acrobats","id":"x35346"}],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":[],"galleryLabels":[{"text":"<i><b>Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art</b></i><b> (March - November 2026)</b>\n\nThe circus comes to town \r\n\r\nSchiaparelli announced the Summer 1938 Circus collection as a dazzling spectacle, ‘A circus on Main Street with elephants, apples and toffee… and prints which challenge Barnum’s title [as] the greatest show on Earth’. Showcasing the designer’s irrepressible creativity, the collection was popular with her fashionably adventurous clients and it received wide press coverage. The New York Times highlighted an ‘elephant jacket, with small pachyderms appliquéd in silver on a Shocking Pink background’.\n\nPink, plum suit with acrobat fastenings\r\nElsa Schiaparelli\r\nSummer 1938, Circus collection\r\nParis\r\nSilk twill (jacket); metal (buttons); silk crêpe (dress)\r\nV&amp;A: T.395&amp;A-1974\r\nGiven by Ruth Ford\n\nPlum suit with horse fastenings\r\nElsa Schiaparelli\r\nSummer 1938, Circus collection\r\nParis\r\nWool, glass (jacket); metal (buttons); silk (dress)\r\nV&amp;A: T.37-1964, T.38-1964\r\nGiven by Dorothy Otway Smithers\n\nPink suit with elephants\r\nElsa Schiaparelli\r\nSummer 1938, Circus collection\r\nParis\r\nSilk, rayon cord, metal floss, silk floss, rhinestones (jacket); rayon (dress)\r\nASU FIDM Museum, Los Angeles: 2021.1796.1AB\r\nGift of Liz Forster in memory of Dorothy Rasmussen","date":{"text":"2026","earliest":"2026-01-01","latest":"2026-12-31"}}],"partNumbers":["T.395-1974","T.395A-1974"],"accessionNumberNum":"395","accessionNumberPrefix":"T","accessionYear":1974,"otherNumbers":[],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE","Jacket","Dress"],"assets":[],"recordModificationDate":"2026-08-04","recordCreationDate":"1999-12-15","availableToBook":false}}