Schiaparelli Supports Man Ray at The Met: A Dialogue Between Fashion and Surrealism

This fall, Maison Schiaparelli lends its creative voice to Man Ray: When Objects Dream, a major exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, on view from September 14, 2025, to February 1, 2026. It marks the first deep dive into the artist’s signature "rayographs" — ghostly, dream-infused photographs that redefined the image as object, illusion, and mystery.

With over 150 works spanning photography, painting, film, and sculpture, the show captures Man Ray’s boundary-pushing energy and central role in the Dada and Surrealist movements.

Schiaparelli Supports Man Ray at The Met: A Dialogue Between Fashion and Surrealism

This fall, Maison Schiaparelli lends its creative voice to Man Ray: When Objects Dream, a major exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, on view from September 14, 2025, to February 1, 2026. It marks the first deep dive into the artist’s signature "rayographs" — ghostly, dream-infused photographs that redefined the image as object, illusion, and mystery.

With over 150 works spanning photography, painting, film, and sculpture, the show captures Man Ray’s boundary-pushing energy and central role in the Dada and Surrealist movements.

  • Where Art and Fashion Collide

    For Schiaparelli, this exhibition is more than a tribute, it’s a homecoming. The Maison’s legendary founder, Elsa Schiaparelli, first met Man Ray in 1919 in New York, and their connection would blossom into a creative partnership in Paris, where both artists explored themes of transformation, illusion, and playful provocation. She dressed bodies like artworks; he photographed dreams like portraits. Their collaboration blurred the line between muse and model, object and image — and laid the groundwork for fashion as artistic expression.

  • The Legacy Lives On

    Schiaparelli’s current artistic director Daniel Roseberry continues this legacy, where couture flirts with the surreal and beauty lies in the unexpected. Supporting When Objects Dream is a statement of continuity: a celebration of art that doesn’t conform, and fashion that dares to feel. “Like Elsa, Man Ray wasn’t just part of the scene — he changed it,” says Roseberry “They moved between genres, between worlds. Before fashion became a business, it was art.”

  • Where Art and Fashion Collide

    For Schiaparelli, this exhibition is more than a tribute, it’s a homecoming. The Maison’s legendary founder, Elsa Schiaparelli, first met Man Ray in 1919 in New York, and their connection would blossom into a creative partnership in Paris, where both artists explored themes of transformation, illusion, and playful provocation. She dressed bodies like artworks; he photographed dreams like portraits. Their collaboration blurred the line between muse and model, object and image — and laid the groundwork for fashion as artistic expression.

  • The Legacy Lives On

    Schiaparelli’s current artistic director Daniel Roseberry continues this legacy, where couture flirts with the surreal and beauty lies in the unexpected. Supporting When Objects Dream is a statement of continuity: a celebration of art that doesn’t conform, and fashion that dares to feel. “Like Elsa, Man Ray wasn’t just part of the scene — he changed it,” says Roseberry “They moved between genres, between worlds. Before fashion became a business, it was art.”

Information

Man Ray: When Objects Dream
14.09.25 – 01.02.26

The Met Fifth Avenue, 1000 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10028

https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/man-ray-when-objects-dream

Credits

Portraits of Elsa Schiaparelli by Man Ray, 1933 © MAN RAY TRUST