Meet Daniel Roseberry's Muse: Mom Fran

In the world of high fashion, few stories are as heartwarming and artistically rich as that of Daniel Roseberry and his mother, Fran Roseberry. As the American artistic director of the legendary Paris-based fashion house: Schiaparelli, Daniel has taken the fashion world by storm with his provocative and luxurious designs. His journey, however, is deeply intertwined with the artistic influence and unwavering support of his dear mother Fran. 

Since stepping into his role at Schiaparelli in 2019, Daniel has brought a fresh, subversive flair to the brand, crafting pieces that are as thought-provoking as they are beautiful. From handbags adorned with playful nipples to leather bodysuits painted with female anatomy, and dresses featuring trompe l’oeil breasts, Daniel’s work challenges the conventional and celebrates the extraordinary.

“Any time the work can be worn beyond the runway is so gratifying,” he says. 

One of Daniel's biggest fans is none other than his mother, Fran, an artist and calligrapher based in Plano, Texas. Fran proudly sports her son’s avant-garde designs, often sparking conversations and admiration.

“I was out the other day and a woman stopped me and asked, ‘Is that a Schiaparelli bag?’” Fran recalls. “And I said, ‘Yes! And you’ve got to see my wallet!’ It was the one with the nipple piercing.”

When aristocrat-turned-designer Elsa Schiaparelli founded her namesake brand in Paris in the late 1920s, she collaborated with surrealist masterminds like Salvador Dalí. They created iconic pieces such as a dress adorned with a subversive lobster and a black gown mimicking the human skeleton.

“Designing for me incidentally is not a profession but an art,” Elsa Schiaparelli wrote in her 1954 memoir: Shocking Life.

It’s fitting, then, that Daniel’s practice is so profoundly informed by art, particularly drawing, in which his mother tutored him as a child.

“She introduced me to a natural method I could adapt to the rest of my creative life,” he said.

Daniel’s father is a celebrated Anglican minister whose sermons he’d devour in church every Sunday. 
Those who’d assume growing up in a deeply Christian home was creatively stifling, would be wrong. Daniel’s parents passionately encouraged his artistic pursuits, even when he’d sit in Sunday service sketching Jessica Rabbit and Michelle Pfeiffer’s leather-clad Catwoman.

“I always had my own dialogue with God, and that has not changed,” said Daniel. 

Fran Roseberry photographed by her son Daniel Roseberry for the Document S/S 2024 issue in Schiaparelli Haute Couture SS24.