Can a Schiaparelli show ever disappoint? If it is possible, it has not yet been. And couture is, at its most articulate, a negotiation of texture, colour and conceptual painstaking.
On the morning of 26 January 2026, Paris awoke to the inauguration of Haute Couture Week, and Schiaparelli opened the season with its Spring/Summer 2026 collection, The Agony and the Ecstasy, under Daniel Roseberry’s rigorous direction. From the first moment the models appeared on the runway, the collection asserted itself across multiple registers: aesthetic, intellectual and affective.
The show was genuinely transfixing – not superficially, but in a manner that provoked reflection as acutely as it enthralled the eye. Pleats, ruffles, lace overlays and feathered accents choreographed movement and rhythm, dimension and tactility, producing garments that seemed alive in dialogue with the space they occupied. Deep, saturated blacks formed a foundational canvas, against which eruptions of emerald, crimson, and citrine radiated, emphasising the tension between restraint and liberation, shadow and illumination.
Yet beyond technical mastery, there was something uniquely invigorating about Roseberry’s approach to couture. In an era when calling oneself a designer has become increasingly commonplace, and when creative gestures are often diluted by the proliferation of new brands and labels, Roseberry reminds us that true design is another discipline entirely. Each silhouette and flourish is a testament to the intellectual meticulousness, imaginative audacity and artisanal expertise that define haute couture at its highest level. His work revives the childlike exhilaration at the heart of fashion, reconnecting us to the wonder that first drew many to the industry. Couture here is wearable art.
The emotional core of this collection emerges not from technique alone, but from an almost spiritual reckoning with art itself. Roseberry has described the revelation that inspired the collection during a visit to the Sistine Chapel: confronted with Michelangelo’s ceiling, he experienced a shift from thinking about appearances to considering feeling, movement and expression. That principle – emotion over mere visual composition – permeates The Agony and the Ecstasy. Each look carries a pulse, a heartbeat, as if the garments themselves are mediators of sensation.
Volume and surface are instruments of meaning rather than mere ornament. Architectural tailoring and corsetry imposed structural precision; cascading organza, kinetic ruffles, and sculptural pleats introduced corporeal dynamism, transforming the body into an active participant in the narrative of the runway. Feathered details punctuated the silhouettes like purposeful performative gestures, evoking birds in flight, serpentine stingers, or fantastical hybrids. Layers of neon tulle beneath hand-cut lace created subtle depth and sfumato effects, and crystal-dusted organza spikes transformed skirts and jackets into living tableaux of texture and light.
Colour is deployed with scrupulous articulation. The saturated blacks establish a commanding visual field, while bursts of jewel-like hues – saffron, pink, and turquoise reminiscent of birds of paradise – act as emphatic signals, guiding the viewer’s eye and heightening the sense of narrative within each piece. Every shade, shadow, and reflection is intentionally constructed to carry affective and conceptual weight.
Schiaparelli’s historical engagement with surrealism finds renewal here. Dislocations of proportion, asymmetrical silhouettes and imaginative structural inversions are reframed not as whimsy but as provocative interventions, prompting reflection on perception, corporeality and the ontology of fashion. Accessories bristling with artificial birds’ heads, pearl-set eyes, and resin beaks reinforce the Maison’s signature fascination with the natural world, bridging the surreal and the tangible. Every piece functions as a conceptual proposition: a living sculpture, kinetic and poetic.
The Agony and the Ecstasy transcended display. It articulated a dialogue between technical mastery, imaginative audacity, and emotional resonance. Each piece posed a proposition about how clothing occupies space, mediates movement, and communicates affect. Schiaparelli reaffirmed that couture’s highest function is not ornamentation but a medium for conceptual, emotional, and cultural discourse.
By the show’s conclusion, it was evident that Roseberry had once again delineated the uppermost possibilities of haute couture. The collection’s resonance extends beyond Paris, poised to influence red carpets, stylistic discourse, and the broader cultural imagination in the months ahead.
