"As A child Schiap was definitely difficult," Elsa Schiaparelli wrote in 1954 in the opening chapter of her autobiography "Shocking Life". In fact, she continued, "she still is." As Meryle Secrest, the author of a new life of the Italian couturier notes, Schiaparelli tended to use the third person "whenever she was feeling evasive". This was often: the autobiography barely mentions her husband or daughter. Ms Secrest's incisive, sympathetic life demonstrates great skill in unpicking the web of myths that Schiaparelli wove to reveal the shape of the woman beneath.
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