It’s amazing that Elsa Schiaparelli (1890–1973) has never had an exhibition in the U.K. After all, when she escaped the palazzo in Rome where she grew in a family of scholars—a home most would envy but she found too strict—she went to the English countryside to be an au pair. When that didn’t work out, she made her way to London, married the theosophist Wilhem de Kerlor—he was actually a dazzling con artist—and lived catch-as-catch-can. Pretty soon she left de Kerlor and took herself and their daughter to Paris, where mentored by Paul Poiret she began to design clothes. Cut to the 1930s: “Schiap,” as she was called, was the talk of the town. She drew her cultured background and love of Surrealism into her ensembles, which were sharp and witty, full of metaphor and allusion. Chanel was frustrated by this Italian upstart, who stole the limelight with her chic shows and intellectual cachet. Then came the 40s, world war, and Schiap’s time was over. But the 30s belonged to her, as you’ll learn at “Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art,” the first U.K. exhibition on the inventive designer. —Laura Jacobs