 At long last, the worst kept secret in fashion ever (well, until the next one, at least) is out: Marco Zanini, who presented his final, and utterly gorgeous, collection for Rochas on Wednesday in Paris, is to assume creative direction of the house of Schiaparelli, founded by Elsa Schiaparelli in 1927. Zanini starts today, Monday September 30, mulling fabric choices for his debut during the spring 2014 haute couture in Paris next January, with some kind of ready to wear to be shown not long after. But since being offered the role, Zanini has of course had Schiaparelli on his mind day and night. So much so that when he was in Stockholm on vacation over the summer, he decided to commemorate his appointment with a new self-designed tattoo of a galleon ship and anchor on his left hand. Was it all about sailing into uncharted waters, perhaps? Putting down anchor in new territory? At dinner Sunday night Zanini laughed and said not quite. “I wanted to mark this new move, this big change, with something as bold as Elsa’s gestures.” Having to debut with a couture collection certainly isn’t fazing Zanini, who spent nine years working on Atelier Versace under Donatella. It is, he says, “creatively speaking, the ultimate luxury for a fashion designer. It’s like my career just got upgraded to first class.” Of course, the inevitable question is what does Schiaparelli personally mean to Zanini. Well, for one thing, as a 16-year-old learning English in London in the summer of 1987, he found a first edition of Shocking Life: The Autobiography of Elsa Schiaparelli, which he splurged around $80 on when he found it in one of the many vintage bookstores that used to litter Charing Cross Road. He owns it to this day, the book still bearing the then-exorbitant price tag written in pencil. And for another, the one time Zanini attended the Costume Institute Gala was for the exhibit “Impossible Conversations” in 2012, the show that conceived of an imaginary dialogue between Elsa Schiaparelli and Miuccia Prada. “I’m always looking for signs,” Zanini said, “so I took that as a green light.” Or, in this case perhaps, a shocking pink one. white prom dresses green prom dresses
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