Donatella Versace is the fashion industry’s very own rock’n’roll legend. She has survived addiction and tragedy and remains as blonde as Debbie Harry and as snake-hipped as Keith Richards, still holding her spot as Milan fashion week’s Friday night headliner.
But Donatella’s outlook has evolved, and Versace’s with it. The bulletproof glamour is unchipped and glossy as freshly manicured nails, but the designer’s salty, wry persona is more Stormy Daniels than Barbie these days. “When [my brother] Gianni was alive… there was a different kind of energy,” she told Harper’s Bazaar recently. “His women had something to say as well, but being a man he put accent on their bodies and their attitude. That was his way to spread a message about self-confidence and strength, but I am a woman and I live in a completely different world. Looks are important, but … [women] want to be listened to.”
In front of a stadium-sized audience, all the Versace signifiers were in place for the unveiling of her latest collection. A neon-lit palazzo, a cast of catwalk supermodels, lime-green carpet swept and prepped to Centre Court standards: every code of the house reminds you that Versace is for winners.
The opening looks of supersized blazers worn with miniskirts so short that they disappeared underneath were classic power-dressing territory. But it says much about how much the Versace aesthetic has matured that there were elements in this collection – the boyish jackets worn over polo neck sweaters, the button-through pencil skirts, the mid-century graphic prints, the sporty bag straps – that wouldn’t have looked amiss in a collection by Miuccia Prada, whose feminist and intellectual coordinates once placed her at the opposite corner of Milan fashion week from Donatella Versace.
Show notes foregrounded the boxy Conglobo bag, inspired by vintage steamer trunks. But the standout accessories of the show were trainers, deliberately gauche in their chunky proportions, which transformed cocktail-hour sequins into looks with a sporty bounce.
