In honor of National Lobster Day, would you wear this vintage lobster-inspired dress? Italian fashion icon Elsa Schiaparelli designed the frock in 1937 in collaboration with Spanish artist Salvador Dalí. Wow is all I can say. That’s a big lobster, but perhaps back in the day it was ladylike.
Schiaparelli, along with her rival Gabriel “Coco” Chanel, paved the fashion frontier for female designers and largely influenced the world of Parisian haute couture. The famous dress was weaved from white silk and embellished with a crimson waistband. Lore says that Dali, who began an infatuation with incorporating lobsters into his work in 1934, wanted to apply real mayonnaise to the lobster on the dress. Schiaparelli sensibly objected. Famously worn by Wallis Warfield Simpson, former Duchess of Windsor, in photographs taken at Château de Candé in France, the dress now resides in a museum.
National Lobster Day or not I would still wear this dress. It’s French couture after all.