Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read.
Start by marking “Shocking Life: The Autobiography of Elsa Schiaparelli” as Want to Read:
Shocking Life: The Autobiography of Elsa Schiaparelli
She knew everyone from Paris to Hollywood, collaborated with the Surrealists, and left her indelible mark on the world of fashion. Vogue
She slapped Paris. She smacked it. She tortured it. She bewitched it. And it fell madly in love with her. Yves Saint Laurent
A dress from Schiaparelli ranks like a modern canvas. Janet Flanner, The New Yorker
Elsa Schiaparelli (1890-1973) w ...more
She slapped Paris. She smacked it. She tortured it. She bewitched it. And it fell madly in love with her. Yves Saint Laurent
A dress from Schiaparelli ranks like a modern canvas. Janet Flanner, The New Yorker
Elsa Schiaparelli (1890-1973) w ...more
Reader Q&A
To ask other readers questions about
Shocking Life
,
please sign up
.
Be the first to ask a question about Shocking Life
This book is not yet featured on Listopia.
Add this book to your favorite list »
Community Reviews
(showing
1-30
of
471)
This is a toughie to review... I think I might have hated "Schiap" if I ever met her. She name-drops like there is no tomorrow. I wonder did she choose anecdotes just so she could name names... She mentions being firm friends, lifelong friends, dear friends, fast friends... with hundreds of people. Is it possible that these people felt the same??? A good test of this might be to see how many of these famous people mention her in their biographies? The woman practically invented networking!
Her re ...more
Her re ...more
I knew next to nothing about Schiaparelli when I started this book, except that she made crazy surrealist clothing in the heyday of modern art in Paris.
Reading the book is like listening to a rambly old lady who never stops talking. She just launches into memories willy nilly and sometimes they are boring and don't really make sense, sometimes it's almost embarassingly culturally outdated but often it is gripping and wonderful and it makes you wish you could have been there. She is always witty ...more
Reading the book is like listening to a rambly old lady who never stops talking. She just launches into memories willy nilly and sometimes they are boring and don't really make sense, sometimes it's almost embarassingly culturally outdated but often it is gripping and wonderful and it makes you wish you could have been there. She is always witty ...more
Schiaparelli was an amazing person, but her autobiography just kind of rambles on like a one-sided conversation. Her account of WW II was rather interesting and offered a different perspective on the Nazi occupation of France than I have ever read before.. I also enjoyed the account of her visit to Moscow. She alternates between writing in teh first and third person and note sin the beginning of the book that she views herself as if in a mirror. I tried to decipher when she switched personal pro
...more
Am about 3/4 of the way through this, and, man, is it a slog. Schiaparelli had, by all accounts, a very interesting life: a runaway bride, deserted wife, fantastic peacock, surrealist designer who collaborated with Salvador Dali and Jean Cocteau. But her writing is stilted. She doesn't know how to convey emotion and life--it's a lot of telling, not showing. I wish someone would write a biography on her and do her life justice. (Maybe Judith Thurman?)
UPDATE: I couldn't finish it. I got most of th ...more
UPDATE: I couldn't finish it. I got most of th ...more
What a fascinating lady! The book is not lengthy but gives the reader an insight on what made Elsa tick.
Bleh. Such a slog. The hardest part is how unlikable Schiap was. The book was chock full of her self agrandizing narcissism, name-dropping, bragging and general conceit. I've personally had this experince when working with artists whose work I admired, only to be so disappointed when they turned out to be not very nice people. I read this book as a precursor to reading "Shocked", which was inspired by the author reading "Shocking Life". I'm not sure I will read "Shocked" now. We'll see.
I enjoyed this outlandish autobiography of Schiaparelli but I constantly wondered how much was fact and how much fiction - either way it was an entertaining read. One thing I found interesting was how she would jump between first and third person. It seems that she used third person when she was ashamed or embarrassed of the story she told. But I found it eerily reminiscent of Patrick Bateman in American Psycho...
Who knew?! I picked up this book at The Met after the Prada/Schiaparelli exhibit. I was utterly surprised by how fun it was. I loved hearing about life in Europe, especially Paris, in the first half of the 20th century. Schiaparelli was such live wire, full of that mad cap self confidence of women of a certain era.
I don't know why, but I had a strange interest about Elsa Schiaparelli ever since I was a kid.
My grandmother told me about the eccentric Elsa and her strange clothes.
Her bio is a great book about the most important fashion designer of the 30's.
My grandmother told me about the eccentric Elsa and her strange clothes.
Her bio is a great book about the most important fashion designer of the 30's.
Interesting life but a seriously annoying and somewhat arrogant style jumping in and out of the third person. Probably not worth reading unless you are seriously interested in the minor movements of her life.
I wanted to love this but couldn't get in to the wandering narrative where Shiaparelli flips between referring to herself as "Shiap" and speaking in the first person almost every other sentence.
Jun 22, 2014
Pamela Mandell
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
memoir-and-bios
Starts out strong but premise grows thin by end. Still wonderful details about Schiaparelli's life and conceit of book works well in beginning.
i have a first edition hardcopy. try to get this edition from your library to read. highly recommended, especially if you like fashion and dada...
love this lady and her work.
keep getting sidetracked with this book.
keep getting sidetracked with this book.
Shiap is a strange bird, which made for a quick, interesting read.
Loved hearing her own voice even if she tends towards tedious.
There are no discussion topics on this book yet.
Be the first to start one »
Elsa Schiaparelli (September 10, 1890 – November 13, 1973) was a Parisian fashion designer of the 1920s and 1930s. She was born in Rome, Italy, of Italian and Egyptian heritage. She was a great-niece of Giovanni Schiaparelli, who discovered the canals of Mars.
More about Elsa Schiaparelli...
“Many men admire strong women but they don't love them. Some women succeed at being strong and also tender, but most of those who have intended to walk alone, making their own way, have lost their happiness.”
—
18 likes
“She can endure pain and loss without any trouble, but she doesn't know how to react facing happiness.”
—
6 likes
More quotes…
