Lady GaGa Week—Schiaparelli Influence, Part I

Because of the positive response I had from last week's postings, I have decided to dedicate an entire week to Lady GaGa and fashion influences. I thought I would begin with one of her most current conversation pieces, the telephone hat. If you haven't seen the video, I suggest you watch it; it's not just a music video, but a mini-movie in the style of Kill Bill (click here for the link). As you can see in the images below, whether made or hair or completely deconstructed, the telephone hat has taken on many forms.






Lady GaGa's headgear made me think of Elsa Schiaparelli's famous shoe hat—a collaboration with the surrealist artist Salvador Dali. For those of you not familiar with Schiaparelli, she was one of Coco Chanel's greatest rivals and known for her designs with surrealist influences, along with her bold use of color. Wikipedia listed the shoe hat as one of her major contributions to the fashion world:

In 1933 Dali was photographed by his wife Gala Dali with one of her slippers balanced on his head. In 1937 he sketched designs for a shoe hat for Schiaparelli, which she featured in her Fall-Winter 1937-38 collection. The hat, shaped like a woman's high heeled shoe, had the heel standing straight up and the toe tilted over the wearer's forehead. This hat was worn by Gala Dali, Schiaparelli herself, and by the Franco-American editor of the French Harper's Bazaar, heiress Daisy Fellowes, who was one of Schiaparelli's best clients.

Does the shoe hat look familiar, but you just can't put your finger on where you remember seeing it? For those of you film buffs, you may remember seeing Katherine Helmond ("Mona" from Who's the Boss?) wearing it in Terry Gilliam's Brazil.