Irina Shayk has defended Schiaparelli’s lion-head dress, which has been making headlines.
After Kylie Jenner sat front row at the fashion house’s couture show in Paris on Monday wearing a strapless black velvet gown adorned with a startlingly lifelike (and life-sized) copy of the apex predator’s face, social media fans went into a frenzy.
In addition, the founder of Kylie Cosmetics obtained the haute couture piece before it ever made its runway debut. Shayk proudly strutted her thing in a nearly identical outfit during the show.
“I support these incredible artists who worked tirelessly, with their hands, using wool, silk, and foam, to sculpt this embroidered Lion, and image of Pride, An image that @schiaparelli invokes while exploring themes of strength,” the 37-year-old supermodel captioned a nine-slide Instagram carousel of photos from the show and from backstage fittings.
“I am honored to have been called on as well to lend my art as a woman to this @danielroseberry 🖤,” she added, tagging the house’s creative director, Daniel Roseberry.
Per the show notes, Roseberry drew inspiration from Dante Alighieri’s “Inferno,” reimagining the three beasts featured in the poem — the lion (representing pride), the leopard (lust) and the she-wolf (greed) — as couture garments.
PETA also issued a statement in defense of the collection, calling the creature heads “fabulously innovative” and arguing that they “celebrate the beauty of wild animals” and “may be a statement against trophy hunting.”
While Jenner, like Shayk, made sure to note that the lion’s head was fake and crafted by hand using manufactured materials, many of their Instagram followers nevertheless criticized the ensemble.
