In October of last year, during a creative retreat outside Rome, Daniel Roseberry arranged a last-minute tour of the Sistine Chapel. What transpired in those hallowed chambers would fundamentally alter the trajectory of Schiaparelli’s Spring/Summer 2026 Haute Couture collection. Standing beneath Michelangelo’s ceiling — a work that changed art forever when one man presented a wild, visually rambunctious, vulnerable and romantic imagining of the divine — Roseberry experienced a revelation that would become the emotional heartbeat of this season.
The first thing you see isn’t the ceiling, but the walls, densely painted by an army of artists in ecclesiastical scenes meant to tell, to educate. But crane your neck skyward and thought stops. Feeling begins.
Here were agony and ecstasy commingled, terrible and exquisite. Michelangelo hadn’t told his audience what happened; he gave them permission to feel when they looked at art. Five centuries later, it woke Roseberry up too.
For the first time in years, the creative director stopped thinking about how something should look and instead considered how he felt whilst creating it. This revelation — this shift from cerebral to visceral — informed every element of The Agony and the Ecstasy. Sharp strokes and rapid squiggles became scorpion tails.
Stingers and snake teeth emerged as chimeraed archetypes of couture with venom woven into their very silhouettes. These reptilian and arachnid creatures, these infantas terribles, would become the heroes of the collection: birds of flight defying gravity, bold in colour, explosive in silhouette. The result is a collection that honours the depth of skill and talent within Schiaparelli’s ateliers, all working at the height of their technical and imaginative powers.
Inspired by the colours of birds of paradise — pinks, blues, saffron — these fantastical creations pay homage to nature’s majesty whilst alluding to Elsa Schiaparelli’s own fascination with animal life. The technical virtuosity on display represents the Schiaparelli ateliers working at the apex of their powers. Hand-cut lace achieves bas-relief dimensionality, creating depth and shadow through meticulous construction.
Feathers — both genuine and trompe l’oeil silk bouquets — are hand-painted, airbrushed, or ceremonially dipped in resin and crystals. Long-term cultural relevance requires resisting the temptation of constant reaction. At Schiaparelli, we are fortunate to inherit a house founded on artistic radicality.
If a house has a strong creative language, each collection becomes more than a seasonal moment; it becomes part of a cultural conversation. Immediacy creates attention. Cultural vision creates legacy. — Delphine Bellini