A Stitch in Time

To perfect a Schiaparelli look, designer Daniel Roseberry conducts five arduous fittings and that's just for the shoulder of one jacket

- By Rachel Tashjian

Couture is a notoriously labor-intensive process, a luxurious measure of beads, pearls, yards of fabric, and stitches that adds up to incalculable beauty. But where does one even begin when the goal is (dauntingly!) perfection? For Daniel Roseberry, the 37-year-old artistic director of Schiaparelli since 2019, it's a gut feeling.

With the Fall 2022 collection, he wanted to emphasize tailoring as "a classic idea that grounds all the surrealism" of the boundary-rattling house founded by Elsa Schiaparelli nearly a century ago. Roseberry's gauntlet-thrower of an opening look: a severe black skirt suit and boater with a champagne corset, kissed on the hips by two velvet bows. The jacket alone took five fittings and over 150 hours to perfect; his first sketch had just the shape of the shoulder.

Between his atelier and the team that helps him cast and style the show, Roseberry oversees a universe of creative and technical puzzles. But amid all those decisions about which black crepe is the right one, he explains, "there's a ceremony to" the fitting. "And when it's good, it feels like the Earth stops turning for two seconds." Roseberry walks us through the weeks before the world stands still.

FIRST SKETCH, EIGHT WEEKS OUT (1)