Elsa Schiaparelli often used classic tailored jackets as a perfect foil for her gloriously adventurous embroideries. Her clothes were smart, sophisticated and often wildly eccentric, and she had a huge following. Her ideas, coupled with designs she commissioned from famous artists, were carried out with considerable skill. Salvador Dalí, Christian Bérard and Jean Cocteau, for example, designed fabrics and accessories. Jean Schlumberger produced costume jewellery and buttons. Art movements such as Cubism and Surrealism influenced her designs. She used tweed to make evening wear and hessian for dresses. She dyed furs, put padlocks on suits and popularised Tyrolean peasant costume.

This jacket shows how Schiaparelli used historical and traditional embroideries, including magnificent ecclesiastical vestments, as sources of inspiration. Its resplendent appeal lies in the rich juxtaposition of shining metal embroidery set against the dark, imperial purple velvet. The large-scale floral pattern is worked in tinted metal strips over thick pads. A typical Schiaparelli touch is the button moulded in the shape of a swan which fastens the jacket fronts together.

Schiaparelli's creations illustrate her wholehearted efforts to unite the best of the fine and decorative arts. She breathed new life into largely forgotten skills to achieve stunning effects. She was fearless and used deliberately provocative combinations of old and new techniques and materials.