The Schiaparelli Fall 2021 RTW collection is a dedication to the unexpected, the risky, and the exuberant.

Yet the insistent, even unapologetic boldness of the decorative elements is juxtaposed with a sober elegance. The collection, rendered almost entirely in black, bone-white, and navy, is meant to be a canvas, a series of uniforms that the wearer can embellish with as much as she wants. In that way, these pieces feel very personal to me—and, to I hope, the woman who wears them. They allow for freedom of expression, whether that’s a shout or a whisper.

You can find that same improbably harmonious relationship, between the understated and the extravagant, in our new Elsa bag, here introduced in two new iterations: one embellished with a cast-metal mouth; another decorated with charms in the shapes of all the codes of the house —jewelry not just for your skin, but for your purse as well.

That fascination with body parts extends to our pieces featuring breast or nipple embellishments. Sometimes, as in the pair of gold quilted leather breasts on a cream-colored hand-knit wool sweater, they’re pliable and soft. Other times, as in the molded leather bralettes, they’re harder, a kind of protection: serious with a sense of self-awareness. In both cases, they pay tribute to the body itself—its beautiful sculptural quality, its wondrous shapes. Elsa Schiaparelli believed that anatomy was not just a point of inspiration, but a playground.

Go behind the scenes of the Schiaparelli Ready-to-Wear Fall/Winter 2021 by Daniel Roseberry.