The lobster dress is a 1937 dress designed by

Elsa Schiaparelli Elsa Schiaparelli ( , also , ; 10 September 1890 – 13 November 1973) was a fashion designer from an Italian aristocratic background. She created the house of Schiaparelli in Paris in 1927, which she managed from the 1930s to the 1950s. ...

. It features a large lobster painted by

Salvador Dalí Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marquess of Dalí of Púbol (; ; ; 11 May 190423 January 1989) was a Spanish Surrealism, surrealist artist renowned for his technical skill, precise draftsmanship, and the striking and bizarr ...

Design

The dress is an A-line off-white

silk Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be woven into textiles. The protein fiber of silk is composed mainly of fibroin and is produced by certain insect larvae to form cocoons. The best-known silk is obtained from the coc ...

evening Evening is the period of a day that starts at the end of the afternoon and overlaps with the beginning of night. The exact times when evening begins and ends depend on location, time of year, and culture, but it is generally regarded as beginn ...

or dinner dress with a crimson waistband featuring a large

lobster Lobsters are a family (biology), family (Nephropidae, Synonym (taxonomy), synonym Homaridae) of marine crustaceans. They have long bodies with muscular tails and live in crevices or burrows on the sea floor. Three of their five pairs of legs ...

painted by

onto the skirt. The initial lobster motif was drawn by Dali and printed onto the dress by the silk designer Sache. The dress is also illustrated with sprigs of

parsley Parsley, or garden parsley (''Petroselinum crispum'') is a species of flowering plant in the family Apiaceae that is native to the central and eastern Mediterranean region (Sardinia, Lebanon, Israel, Cyprus, Turkey, southern Italy, Greece, Por ...

. The dress is made from printed silk

organza Organza is a thin, plain weave, sheer fabric traditionally made from silk. Many modern organzas are woven with synthetic filament fibers such as polyester or nylon. Silk organza is woven by a number of mills along the Yangtze River and in the pr ...

and synthetic

horsehair Horsehair is the long hair growing on the manes and tails of horses. It is used for various purposes, including upholstery, brushes, the bows of musical instruments, a hard-wearing fabric called haircloth, and for horsehair plaster, a wallc ...

. The front of the dress is 52 inches (132 cm) in length, with a waist measurement of 22 inches (56 cm). Schiaparelli prevented Dali from adding

mayonnaise Mayonnaise (; ), colloquially referred to as "mayo" , is a thick, cold, and creamy sauce or dressing commonly used on sandwiches, hamburgers, composed salads, and French fries. It also forms the base for various other sauces, such as tartar ...

to the completed dress.

History

From 1934, Dalí had started incorporating lobsters into his work, including ''New York Dream-Man Finds Lobster in Place of Phone'' shown in the magazine ''

American Weekly ''The American Weekly'' was a Sunday magazine, Sunday newspaper supplement published by the Hearst Corporation from November 1, 1896, until 1966. History During the 1890s, publications were inserted into Joseph Pulitzer's ''New York World'' and ...

'' in 1935, and the mixed-media ''

Lobster Telephone ''Lobster Telephone'' (also known as ''Aphrodisiac Telephone'') is a Surrealist object, created by Salvador Dalí in 1936 for the English poet Edward James (1907–1984), a leading collector of surrealist art. In his 1942 book '' The Secret Li ...

'' (1936). Dali saw

s as symbolic of sexuality. The lobster is placed low on the dress, between the legs of the wearer, with the tail of the lobster fanning upward toward the wearer's Mons Veneris, and its claws towards her calves. The lobster dress made its debut as part of Schiaparelli's Summer/Fall 1937 collection. The dress was worn by

Wallis Simpson Wallis, Duchess of Windsor (born Bessie Wallis Warfield, later Simpson; June 19, 1896 – April 24, 1986), was an American socialite and wife of the former King Edward VIII. Their intention to marry and her status as a divorcée caused ...

in photographs taken by

Cecil Beaton Sir Cecil Walter Hardy Beaton, (14 January 1904 – 18 January 1980) was a British fashion, portrait and war photographer, diarist, painter, and interior designer, as well as an Oscar–winning stage and costume designer for films and the theat ...

at the

Château de Candé The Château de Candé is a château located in the commune of Monts, Indre-et-Loire, France. It is situated 10 km (6 mi) to the south of Tours on the north bank of the river Indre. History The first known Lord of Candé was Macé de La ...

, shortly before Simpson's marriage to

Edward VIII Edward VIII (Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David; 23 June 1894 – 28 May 1972), later known as the Duke of Windsor, was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Empire and Emperor of India from 20 January 19 ...

. Beaton's photographs of Simpson would be featured in ''

Vogue Vogue may refer to: Business * ''Vogue'' (magazine), a US fashion magazine ** British ''Vogue'', a British fashion magazine ** ''Vogue Arabia'', an Arab fashion magazine ** ''Vogue Australia'', an Australian fashion magazine ** ''Vogue China'', ...

'' magazine in an eight-page spread in June 1937. The dress was included as part of Simpson's wedding trousseau. It was illustrated in ''

Women's Wear Daily ''Women's Wear Daily'' (also known as ''WWD'') is a fashion-industry trade journal often referred to as the "Bible of fashion".Horyn, Cathy"Breaking Fashion News With a Provocative Edge" ''The New York Times''. (August 20, 1999). It provides infor ...

'' in May 1937 as a feature on Simpson's spring wardrobe. In her book, ''Nevertheless, She Wore It: 50 Iconic Fashion Moments'', Ann Shen wrote that in Simpson's wearing of the dress "was charged with erotic flippancy" and gave the British public "even more reason to hate Wallis" in the aftermath of her husband's abdication as British monarch. Shen felt that the dress shows "the power of innovation and sexual empowerment in a woman – and the impact art and fashion can have". Schiaparelli and Dali would subsequently create a 'Shoe Hat' (1937–38) and the 'Skeleton Dress' (1938) together. The dress was reimagined by

Miuccia Prada Miuccia Bianchi Prada (; born Maria Bianchi on 10 May 1949) is an Italian billionaire fashion designer and businesswoman. She is the head designer of Prada and the founder of its subsidiary Miu Miu. As of October 2021, ''Forbes'' estimated her n ...

in 2012 to mark the opening of the retrospective ''Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations'' at the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

in New York City and worn by

Anna Wintour Dame Anna Wintour (; born 3 November 1949) is a British journalist based in New York City who has served as editor-in-Chief of ''Vogue'' since 1988 and Global Chief Content Officer for Condé Nast since 2020; she is also the artistic directo ...

at the 2012

Met Gala The Met Gala, or Met Ball, formally called the Costume Institute Gala or the Costume Institute Benefit, is an annual fundraising gala held for the benefit of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute in New York City. It is popularly ...

. The dress was reimagined by Schiaparelli's Creative Director Bertrand Guyon for their Spring 2017 collection of

haute couture ''Haute couture'' (; ; French for 'high sewing', 'high dressmaking') is the creation of exclusive custom-fitted high-end fashion design that is constructed by hand from start-to-finish. Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, Paris became th ...

. Guyon's dress took 6 people some 250 hours to make, with the lobster appliqué sewn by hand onto the skirt. Schiaparelli donated her own copy of the dress to the

Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMoA) is an art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at the northwest end of the Benjamin Fr ...

in 1969. The dress was extensively analysed by Claire Eldred in her essay "Encounters and Exchanges with Elsa Schiaparelli's Lobster Dress: an Object Biography" in the 2019 book ''Fashion and Contemporaneity: Realms of the Visible''.

References

;Bibliography * Elsa Schiaparelli: A Biography. Penguin Books Limited. .

External links

Photographs of the dress
{{Authority control 1930s fashion 1937 works Achelata Individual dresses Works by Salvador Dalí Philadelphia Museum of Art Wallis Simpson Royal dresses White dresses

Design

History

See also

References

External links