Schiaparelli’s Fall 2025 Couture Embraces Sci-Fi Glamour & Surrealist Legacy
Daniel Roseberry has always been a master of spectacle, but his Fall 2025 couture collection for Schiaparelli pushes the boundaries of fantasy and form like never before. Titled “Back to the Future,” the show offered a haunting yet dazzling vision of fashion at the edge of reinvention—an aesthetic reset timed perfectly for a season defined by upheaval across the luxury landscape.
The show began, as all memorable couture moments should, with a jolt. Cardi B, never one to shy from drama, arrived at the gates of the Petit Palais in a structured black bustier gown with a theatrical fringe neckline, holding a live black raven with nonchalance and power. “I’m not scared of the bird,” she told WWD. “I control him. We’re best friends.” Whether an omen or a calculated piece of fashion theater, the image captured the mood of the collection perfectly—ominous, commanding, and charged with symbolism.
On the runway, Roseberry dug deep into the house’s surrealist archives, drawing inspiration from founder Elsa Schiaparelli’s revolutionary collaborations with Salvador Dalí and Jean Cocteau during the turbulent interwar period. Roseberry likened that era to the one we face now—full of tension and transformation. He translated vintage black-and-white photographs into metallic and textural visions of the future, stripping away color to allow surface, structure, and silhouette to speak louder.
A black jacket with razor-sharp shoulders shimmered with silver sequins, while a sheer black tulle cape—reimagining the 1938 “Apollo of Versailles” piece—floated like a ghost of couture past. Roseberry retained his signature hourglass shapes, with sculpted hips and corseted torsos, but balanced them with slinky bias-cut gowns that clung to the body like liquid and then sliced away to reveal gleaming skin. One showstopping fishtail gown in black satin dipped so low in the back it unveiled a rhinestone-encrusted thong—an unapologetic nod to Tom Ford’s early-2000s Gucci provocations.
Throughout the collection, Roseberry leaned into fetish-inflected glamour. A black dominatrix-style saddle bustier hinted at danger, while molded satin breasts with pointed nipples adorned both the front and back of garments, challenging notions of modesty and perspective. One red satin corset-laced gown featured sculpted breasts jutting from the spine, turning the body inside out with surrealist glee. Accessories pushed the theme even further: a pulsating rhinestone necklace in the shape of a human heart—mechanically animated—added eerie vitality to an already charged aesthetic.
The collection’s standout model, Anasofia Negrutsa, looked like she had stepped off the set of Blade Runner. Clad in a silver biker jacket with matador-style shoulders, her slick bun, black vinyl lips, and spike heels brought a futuristic femme-fatale energy that perfectly embodied the show’s message. “I wanted it to feel like a bit of a farewell,” Roseberry explained backstage. “We’re going to be restructuring everything after this. If you want to change the result, you have to change the process.”
Indeed, with monumental changes coming to couture—Jonathan Anderson at Dior, Matthieu Blazy at Chanel, and Pierpaolo Piccioli taking the reins at Balenciaga—Roseberry’s instinct to reset feels both prophetic and timely. Having dominated the post-pandemic couture landscape with his sculptural, showstopping creations, Roseberry knows that staying ahead means knowing when to let go.
This season’s Schiaparelli show wasn’t just another chapter in the house’s surrealist legacy—it was a pivot point. Metallic, monochrome, and filled with visceral beauty, Fall 2025 looked squarely into an uncertain future and dressed it in rhinestones, muscle, and myth. In Roseberry’s hands, fashion remains both armor and art, body and symbol. And in a time of flux, that fusion feels more relevant—and more thrilling—than ever.
