The Print Schiaparelli First Made in 1935 to Mock the Press Is Now on Chanel and on Zara

Rosalia appeared in Mexico City in a dress printed with newspaper columns - a print fashion pulls out of the drawer roughly every ten years and presents as a discovery every time. Now it is back in a capsule collection covering tops, skirts, shirts, trousers and accessories as well as dresses.

The design is simple: light fabric, round neckline, straight cut and a skirt that flares downward, with the graphic carrying the whole thing. And this is where it gets interesting - because this print has a biography longer than most of the fashion houses using it.

First it was mockery, then it became an icon

Elsa Schiaparelli made it first, in 1935. She took press clippings about her own successes and cut clothes out of them - which, looked at honestly, is a fairly brutal comment on how the press creates and consumes fame. In the sixties the print returned via Twiggy and the mini skirts of the mod era.

But its pop-icon status came from a television scene: Carrie Bradshaw in "Sex and the City" in 2009, in a John Galliano design for Dior. Ever since, every return of this print is really a reference to that scene, not to Schiaparelli.

Who is bringing it back now

Matthieu Blazy put the newspaper print into Chanel's 2026/2027 cruise collection shown in Biarritz, as a nod to Coco Chanel's reading habit. Jonathan Anderson put it on the well-known Bow bag at Dior for the 2027 cruise collection. Before them, variations were carried by Roberto Cavalli, Stella McCartney, Balenciaga, Moschino and Zara.

So the top shelf and the cheapest shelf have the same idea at the same moment. That is usually a signal the trend is already halfway to worn out, not at its beginning. For a reader who wants to wear it, that is good news: prices are already spread across the whole market, and the difference between the fashion house version and the chain store version is visible only to those looking for it.

Fashion, as usual, invented nothing. It simply read the same page again.