What perfume-lovers can thrill to at the V&A's Schiaparelli show

Many visitors may go for the Surrealist fashion, the couture jackets, the jewels – and will be thrilled. But here's the gen on the scents that perfumistas will want to seek out in this spectacular exhibition, which runs through till 1st November 2026

WORDS AND PHOTOS: Jo Fairley

S‍chiaparelli Shocking (displayed alongside a miniature bottle)

In the debut issue of On The Scent magazine – find it here – we have eight glorious pages by Senior Writer Suzy Nightingale on the history of designer Elsa Schiaparelli: the life events which turned her into a fashion disruptor, a daring creator, and one of the most ground-breaking couturiers the fashion world has ever seen.

The feature also looks at how designer Daniel Roseberry, whose work is also featured across this breathtaking show, has tapped into the spirit of Schiaparelli, wowing the press with his bold gestures (a pair of golden lungs as a bodice, anyone?), and his incredibly creative use of materials – for instance, recycled CDs shredded into fake fur or reworked into iridescent, over-scaled sequins.

But the element which we think is most likely to delight our readers is the section showcasing Schiaparelli’s ‘lost’ fragrances. To our delight, there is a whole room devoted to her perfumes, displaying perfect-looking bottles alongside illustrations by artist Marcel Vertès, who drew Schiaparelli’s advertisements and created often bawdy imagery, such as Little Red Riding Hood being chased by a hungry Big Bad Wolf.

Arrayed in a room of its own is a collection of fragrances within cleverly-designed mirrored glass cabinets, so that you can also see the back of the flacons. These range from an oversized bottle of Shocking, adorned by a ‘flower head’ – a reference to Elsa Schiaparelli’s childhood longing to have ‘a face of flowers’, which you can read about in Suzy’s magazine article – to Sleeping, a fragrance in the shape of a candle, which was created to be worn at bedtime. (And not with a view to drifting off to sleep, that’s for certain.)

**Sleeping de Schiaparelli** – to be worn to bed, but perhaps not to sleep…

What did it smell like? Allegedly, Sleeping was a soft green ambrée (as we’d describe it now), with ‘spicy carnation over woodsy‑mossy notes and a sugary vanilla base,’ according to the Black Narcissus blog. But oh, that bottle!

Schiaparelli had plenty of fragrance flops, however, alongside the money-making bestsellers. Evocative names which have alas sunk without trace include Chloro-Cologne (1952), Scent of Mystery (1959) and even Shalimar de Chine, which we’ve a hunch that Guerlain’s intellectual property lawyers might have nixed.

Schiaparelli – who preferred to be known as ‘Schiap’ – liked her fragrances to begin with an ‘S’, if possible – like Snuff, of which there’s a perfect example (see below) in the show. There was Salut, Stage, Stunt, and even Spanking (!), launched in a flurry between 1939 and 1941. (War years, which somehow makes it even more extraordinary.) For the true nerd, there’s an online spreadsheet of all her known launches here, from the website perfumeintelligence.co.uk, an online encylopaedia with over 80,000 entries and 13,000 images – a real go-to geeky resource.

Only a handful of Schiaparelli’s successes (and none of her tantalisingly named flops) have made it to the V&A show, but these include the bottle for Zut de Schiaparelli (1949), surely one of the sauciest ever designed – never mind for its time – with its skirt puddled around the bottle’s ankles. Dalí’s design for Le Roy Soleil also features (a fragrance that definitely sounds ahead of its fruity-floral time, with notes of pineapple, rhubarn and papaya blossom, armfuls of jasmine, lily of the valley and carnation, on a sweet, woody-amber base of sandalwood, patchouli and musk. (Launched in 1946, that’d be down-and-dirty musk, rather than the laundry-clean musks of today.)

Our debut issue of On The Scent went to press before we’d seen the exhibition itself (and actually contains much more in-depth info about the fragrances than the show does). Still, sitting alongside the costume jewellery, the hats, the lobster telephone and some of the most exquisite evening jackets that couture has ever produced, this rarely-glimpsed scent memorabilia adds another dimension to what we predict will be one of the V&A’s most successful shows in years.

Meanwhile, watch this space for highlights of the upcoming Perfume Bottles Auction 2026, which includes some dazzling examples of Schiaparelli bottles that collectors can bid for on 2nd May.

Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art runs from 28th March to 8th November 2026 – entrance fee £28 (£30 on weekends); V&A Members go free

More info (and book) here