It wouldn't be Monday morning of Paris Couture Week if Schiaparelli didn't use his fashion show to create a viral Internet moment.
Last year, Kylie Jenner took her front row seat wearing a giant, hyper-realistic lion head on her chest. People went crazy because they thought it was real taxidermy and advertising trophy hunting. It obviously wasn't. It's made from molded foam, wool and faux fur.
No celebrity was in the spotlight this year, although Zendaya showed up with blunt bangs (gasp) and Jennifer Lopez, who was preparing to promote her new film “This Is Me: Now…A Love Story,” came with a new hairstyle of her own . It was a wet-look bob, in case you were wondering, which she wore with Schiaparelli sunglasses with sculpted gold eyebrows and opaque gemstone lenses. (Fashion can't always be fabulous and practical.)
No, there was a lot of buzz on social media this year thanks to a cameo from a giant robot baby on the runway. The hot new accessory, which model Maggie Maurer wore on one hip, was a dazzling, toddler-shaped figure made from silver and green electronic panels, beaded switch panels, broken cables, wires and thousands of shimmering Swarovski crystals. Ms. Maurer, wearing an adventurous all-white racing vest, baggy combat pants and cowboy boots, pressed her small, crusty hand to her heart as she strolled down the runway.
What did it all mean?
Schiaparelli's creative director, Daniel Roseberry, a Texan, incorporated ideas of the Wild West and adventure into the unknown throughout the collection. Mr. Roseberry, always championing the fashion house's surrealist DNA, also explained in his show notes that Giovanni Schiaparelli – the uncle of the house's founder, Elsa Schiaparelli – was an astronomer who named many of the seas and continents on Mars and it was also the inventor of the term “Martian”.
“He inadvertently sparked our modern fascination with creatures from out there,” the show notes say. “The show features a range of profiles that are both familiar and unfamiliar – some human, some otherwise. And therefore completely Schiaparelli.”
In a preview, Mr. Roseberry said that the robot baby was actually his ode to the Ripley character in the “Alien” films, who (spoiler alert) has an alien child. Here you go.
This isn't the first time the fashion world has toyed with the idea of robot babies – and has drawn the ire of some who dislike the suggestion that children could be portrayed as fashion accessories. In 2021, Frank Ocean caused a stir when he cuddled someone named Cody on the Met Gala red carpet. The musician had dyed his hair bright green to match his doll's face, which nodded, winked and waved at fans.
Mr. Roseberry's version didn't come with such bells and whistles. It doesn't have pockets or a shoulder strap, and it's unlikely to ever go on sale. But that's probably for the best. After all, in the 21st century you should buy designer bags, not designer babies. Right?
Vanessa Friedman contributed reporting from Paris.