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"[Schiaparelli] and Dali adored each other because they were both daring and risk-takers," Secrest says. "And Dali's theme of the lobster ... comes up over and over again in his symbolism. He has many symbols, but the lobster is really sort of sexual in theme, I suppose. And at some point or other, they both, he and Elsa concoct this idea that the lobster should be a dress."

She was the first to design a built-in bra for a bathing suit, to put jackets with evening gowns, and she loved embroidery, feathers, sequins, and whimsical buttons. In her heyday, she overshadowed her great rival, Coco Chanel, and her boutique at 21 Place Vendome in Paris — with its statue of Napoleon outside the window — was the place for glamor.

Schiaparelli's movements in and out of France during the first two years of the war aroused suspicions. By the time she left France for America in 1942, the British, French, German and American governments all felt it was obvious that she was a spy for the Vichy regime. While she was in the US, the FBI watched her closely for four years and kept a file.

Schiaparelli invented a built-in bra to be used in bathing suits. Courtesy of the Philadelphia Museum of Art hide caption

itoggle caption Courtesy of the Philadelphia Museum of Art

"The war is terrifying for every dress designer in Paris," Secrest says. "Because it goes so rapidly, because France falls so fast. People hardly have time to catch their breath. It's, it's only a year, you know. They wanted to keep their business. They wanted to keep their houses, but the Germans have moved into Paris. What are they going to do? And, of course, Elsa, being Elsa, wants to have it all. She wants to have her salon stay just the way it is. She doesn't want anybody touching her house. She wants to be able to come and go between New York and Paris. And she manages to go in and out of occupied France."

Schiaparelli returned to France after the war in 1946, never entirely free of the taint of collaboration. And herclients had moved on. Women wanted romance, not modernity. They wanted the nipped waists and flared skirts of Christian Dior's softer "New Look." By 1954, she was out of business; banks no longer lent her credit. And in 1969, she donated a collection of her clothing to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where Secrest did some of her research.

"It's a curious thing," Secrest says. "I don't think she ever was happy, you know? And I think, to a very important degree, she underestimated herself. She underestimated her influence. After all, why are we still talking about Elsa Schiaparelli? Because there are things that she did that nobody else ever did ... She's one of the greats!"