Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dali i Domenech, Marquis of Dali de Pubol (11 May 1904 - 23 January 1989), known professionally as Salvador Dali ( Catalan: [s@lb@'do d@'li]; Spanish: [salba'dor da'li]), was a prominent Spanish surrealist born in Figueres, Catalonia, Spain. Dali was a skilled draftsman, best known for the striking and bizarre images in his surrealist work. His painterly skills are often attributed to the influence of Renaissance masters.
Fashion and photography
Dali built a repertoire in the fashion and photography businesses as well. His cooperation with Italian fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli was well-known, when Dali was commissioned to produce a white dress with a lobster print. Other designs Dali made for her include a shoe-shaped hat, and a pink belt with lips for a buckle. He was also involved in creating textile designs and perfume bottles. In 1950, Dali created a special "costume for the year 2045" with Christian Dior.  Photographers with whom he collaborated include Man Ray, Brassai, Cecil Beaton, and Philippe Halsman. With Man Ray and Brassai, Dali photographed nature; with the others, he explored a range of obscure topics, including (with Halsman) the Dali Atomica series (1948) -- inspired by his painting Leda Atomica -- which in one photograph depicts "a painter's easel, three cats, a bucket of water, and Dali himself floating in the air."  One of Dali's most unorthodox artistic creations may have been an entire persona, in addition to his own. At a French nightclub in 1965, Dali met Amanda Lear, a fashion model then known as Peki D'Oslo. Lear became his protegee and muse, later writing about their affair in her authorized biography My Life With Dali (1986). Transfixed by the mannish, larger-than-life Lear, Dali masterminded her successful transition from modeling to the music world, advising her on self-presentation and helping spin mysterious stories about her origin as she took the disco-art scene by storm. According to Lear, she and Dali were united in a "spiritual marriage" on a deserted mountaintop. She was referred to as Dali's "Frankenstein", and some observers believed Lear's assumed name was a pun on the French phrase "L'Amant Dali", or "Lover of Dali". Lear took the place of an earlier muse, Ultra Violet (Isabelle Collin Dufresne), who had left Dali's side to join The Factory of Andy Warhol.  Both former apprentices would go on to successfully promote their own careers in the arts. On April 10, 2005, they joined a panel discussion "Reminiscences of Dali: A Conversation with Friends of the Artist" as part of a symposium "The Dali Renaissance" for a major retrospective Dali show at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Their conversation is recorded in the 236-page exhibition catalog The Dali Renaissance: New Perspectives on His Life and Art after 1940.
What was Dali's fashion?
His cooperation with Italian fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli was well-known, when Dali was commissioned to produce a white dress with a lobster print.
His cooperation with Italian fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli was well-known, when Dali was commissioned to produce a white dress with a lobster print.