What happens when you combine a little Manet, a little Lacroix, a little 1980s, a little 1880s, a little matador; a little space alien, a little shimmer with a lot of color and metal? You get Daniel Roseberry’s fourth couture collection, “The Matador”. 

During the lockdown, the Texan designer was left uninspired and felt that he was designing for the end of the world. Now that the world has been reborn again, Roseberry returns to innocence and re-encounters the joy that drove him into fashion in the first place.

Creating this season’s collection, Roseberry found a sense of freedom in making the clothing unapologetically pretty. Couture is far from dead and still has the capability of stopping anyone in their tracks; that power feels greater than ever before the pre-pandemic world. 

“I wanted to honor the potential and power of the art form by returning to the fashion I loved in my youth. Blind nostalgia isn’t healthy: we can’t romanticize the past, especially when, for so many groups of people, the past wasn’t romantic at all. But the gift of fashion is its ability to allow us to pretend, and that is its promise as well; if we dream hard enough, maybe we can will that beautiful past into existence,” said Roseberry. 

The creation process behind the collection was conceived in three parts. The first pays tribute to Schiaparelli jackets of the past: you see references to the Maison’s earlier, iconic shapes in the white denim matador-inspired cropped jacket embellished with embroidered barrel sleeves and black silk tassels, worn over a structured tulle skirt.

The collection ultimately honors Elsa Schiaparelli’s vision, but Roseberry’s vision is seen on every model walking down the runway. It is undeniable. It is as intense as his past; referring to the molded leather six-pack abs corsets that was the defining look of his last couture collection.

Borrowing from Lacroix and Jean Paul Gaultier for their curvy shapes, Versailles colors, and cone bra references, the embroiderer Lesage also recreated many classic pieces using the same techniques and materials from Schiaparelli’s past.

The second part of the collection focuses on the body and bijoux, a key element of the house’s visual vocabulary. Roseberry serves you dialogs between hard and soft, machine and human, metal and fabric.

The embroidery represents the bijoux: the nose, the stomach, the pairs of lips and ceramic eyes, hand-painted in the house’s signature Giacometti-inspired gold, and set in rococo frames. For the accessories: a minaudiere shaped like a giant pair of lips; a belt clasp with a cast hand that seems to hug the model across her waist.

The American newcomer ended the collection with a celebration of color featuring a black cocktail dress with a gigantic pink silk rose at the center and a silk velvet dress with soft, semi-conical breasts and, in the back, a crisp fan of Renaissance-blue peau de soie. 

Roseberry is giving a new meaning to the word couture with his over-the-topness, but he succeeds at it. No one needs a new dress, new pants, or a new jacket, we as consumers buy into the raw emotion that the clothing bestows on us. And this collection does just that.

See the full collection below: