CUPCAKELUXE

SNEAK PEEK AT AN IMPOSSIBLE CONVERSATION BETWEEN ELSA SCHIAPARELLI AND MIUCCIA PRADA AT THE COSTUME INSTITUTE AT THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART

Elsa Schiaparelli in Elsa Schiaparelli, autumn 1931. Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Photograph by Man Ray. ©2012 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris.

Guido Harari, Portrait of Miuccia Prada, 1999. Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Guido Harari/Contrasto/Redux

Judy Davis as Elsa Schiaparelli and Miuccia Prada herself, deep in conversation, greet the visitor at the entrance to the exhibition bearing their names at the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

Outfit by Prada; mannequin head by Guido Palau.

Outfit by Schiaparelli; mannequin head by Guido Palau.

Film director Baz Luhrmann takes on an impossible conversation between Elsa Schiaparelli and Miuccia Prada as part of the installation in the current exhibition Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations at the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Schiaparelli’s persona is played by Judy Davis. Prada plays herself. Five different dialogues were filmed, and not once were the actress and designer together in the same room at the same time to make each film. According to the exhibition’s curator, Andrew Bolton, it is somewhat of a take on the 1981 film “My Dinner With André.”  Instead of sitting around in a restaurant, the two main characters converse in an elegant dining room in a private home.