With the Gossip's Beth Ditto belting her hit "Standing in the Way of Control" on a perch above the photographers' pit at tonight's Versus shebang, you half-wondered why all fashion shows aren't like this: fast-paced, toe-tappingly upbeat, entertaining, fun. "Cartoon-y" and "toylike" were the two words Christopher Kane used backstage, while Donatella Versace ran out with the models in a pack behind her to party along to Ditto's last song.
Kane had a point. Colors were Crayola box-bright, and the plastic chain links that trimmed the necklines and hems of 1960s-short dresses and decorated the straps of high-heel sandals had something Lego-like about them. And weren't those oversize polka dots on that sleeveless shift with the patent mesh overlay borrowed from Twister? Shiny, laser-cut patent separates added a gloss of slickness, and sweaters lifted from the house's nineties heyday gave a note of seriousness to what otherwise has to be Versace and Kane's most playful Versus show yet. The overriding theme in Milan this week has been one of optimism, but so far no one has got the crowd as revved up as these two did.
