“The relationship between fashion and celebrities can feel very transactional,” said , the Hollywood-loved artistic director of Schiaparelli, at a party for the brand on Thursday, Oct. 12 in Los Angeles.
All around him at the event — held at the iconic Mayan-style John Sowden House in Los Feliz, designed in 1926 by Lloyd Wright — there were actresses aplenty wearing the label’s surrealist-infused looks.
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Jennifer Lopez posed by the pool in a strapless corset dress with golden evil-eye details at the waist. Demi Moore chatted with Angela Bassett and the latter’s stylist Jennifer Austin by the bar, as waiters passed around cookies decorated to look like evil eye symbols, one of the house’s signature design codes. Elsewhere, Gabrielle Union, Taraji P. Henson, Olivia Wilde, Natasha Lyonne (with filmmaker and XTR founder Bryn Mooser), Regina King and director Janicza Bravo all hung out in a lively large group.
At scores of fashion events, Hollywood names like these are paid to wear the clothes they are seen in. By contrast, averred Roseberry, “The best thing about Schiaparelli in my opinion [is that] we have a house policy: We don’t pay anyone to wear the clothes. We don’t have any contracts. If someone wears it, it’s because there’s a natural connection. It’s a relationship and because they want to wear it. That’s something that’s important to me. We tried to make it more natural.”
Bearing out what Roseberry said, there was a refreshing vibe to the party, from it not being overcrowded to the fact that lots of the glitteringly attired guests seemed to be genuinely happy to have the chance to catch up with each other. Some guests had partly come just to see the house, which was dramatically lit for the evening. “So many people who are long-time LA-ers have said that they’ve never been here and that they’ve always wanted to come here,” said Roseberry. “I love it. It’s such a beautiful space.”
The event did have a commercial raison d’être of course; the party was thrown by Neiman Marcus to celebrate the opening earlier this year of a Schiaparelli shop-in-shop at the store’s location in Beverly Hills.
“We’re very proud to be the exclusive distributor of Schiaparelli in the U.S. along with our sister company Bergdorf Goodman. It’s been an incredible partnership,” said Jodi Kahn, Neiman Marcus’s vice president of luxury fashion, at the party. Kahn said that her favorite thing about Schiaparelli is that “you can really uniquely express yourself based on how you interpret the collection. There are so many different ways, whether through jewelry, the handbags or the ready-to-wear. And someone else might wear the collection in a very different way.” Added Ryan Ross, the president of Neiman Marcus, “We have a common ground of delivering the extraordinary to our different customers — to deliver that sense of discovery is what Neiman Marcus does and that’s also what Schiaparelli does.”
Schiaparelli, founded by Elsa Schiaparelli in Paris in 1927, has had a long history with Neiman Marcus dating back to the 1940s.
Roseberry joined the house as artistic director in 2019 and one of his first trips was to L.A. to connect with Hollywood stylists, he recalled. “My first year at Schiaparelli, I came here and I met with all the stylists. I had all my drawings and I had kind of an indoctrination into the world of this,” said Roseberry (who has seen since dressed everyone from Beyoncé to Lady Gaga), gesturing to the celeb-filled party. “And then that laid the foundation for so many things. So this feels in a weird way like a full-circle moment.”
As for what he felt has most resonated from Schiaparelli’s recent showing in Paris of its Spring Summer 2024 collection, Roseberry called out the launch of the label’s first sneaker, a Chuck Taylor style with gold toes, while also noting that the denim looks have been a hit. “I think the denim pieces were very refreshing for people. I don’t want it to be just red carpet couture. I wear jeans and boots every day. So there’s a different itch that gets scratched when we do real clothes.”
For him, it’s all about balance. Meaning, that the show-stopping garments — “people love the things that get a lot of traction on social media,” as Roseberry put it — will still be front and center, especially in Los Angeles. “I think L.A. is probably the most glamorized part of America,” he added, “and I think there’s a performative element to the clothes that resonates with people that have to be front facing.”
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