Friday, April 12, 2013

"Born with raised moles on her cheek that loosely resembled the constellation of The Big Dipper, Schiaparelli didn't have them removed..."

"... rather, she commissioned Cartier to make her a Big Dipper brooch, with diamonds for stars, mirroring the pattern of the moles on her face. Instead of the classic fur coat that Audrey Volk swore by, [Elsa] Schiaparelli designed high-heeled ocelot fur bowling shoes, as well as a hat made out of the taxidermied face of a cheetah whose open mouth looked like it was swallowing Schiaparelli's head."



From an NPR story about Patricia Volk's new book "Shocked: My Mother, Schiaparelli, and Me."

And here's Elsa Schiaparelli's own book "Shocking Life."

The "shocking" business relates to the "shocking pink," the shade of pink used on the box for Schiaparelli's perfume named Shocking, which came out in 1937, when it was possible for a magazine advertisement to look like this:

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