It's been in beta for six years, a Donatella Versace ideas lab transiently helmed by both Christopher Kane and Jonathan Anderson, but Versus 2.0 is now in full release. For his first collection post-confirmation as creative director, Anthony Vaccarello showed why Versace decided to grant him permanent stewardship of the sub-brand that Gianni once gave to Donatella.
Diffusion lines are tricky beasts. Maybe it's that word diffusion that causes the confusion, implicitly inciting houses to dilute their codes as they loosen their price points to appeal to a wider demographic. Here, while Vaccarello certainly broadened the offer with plenty of daywear—including a starkly branded, essentially mundane hoodie minidress—he declined to ramp down the essential Versace-ness of the whole.
The tartan—on pleated pants for men, asymmetric-hemmed mini kilts for women, and slouchy mohair sweaters and scarves for both—was, he said, part of a loose homage to the London rockiness of a collection he conceived while thinking about Britpop, especially Brett Anderson (although there is no Suede). It was also (in the long olive "kilt") a direct reference back to a Bruce Weber-shot Versus campaign starring Kristen McMenamy from back in the day. This pretty ambient honoring of sub-brand code was much more sharply mirrored by the gleaming leonine buttons on barely-there black crepe, the deconstructed dévoré greca print on a denim nano skirt and a fly-fronted chambray shirt, and the minx-military webbing epaulettes.
Assiduously riffing on the original, Donatella-defined, rock-rebel codes of this line has a double advantage in that it defines a territory that doesn't too overtly overlap with Vaccarello's own collections, and which at the same time keeps instantly shoppable Versus sharply focused. Tonight, an East London shindig will see bands play, drinks drunk, and the revelation of what Vaccarello now plans to be a longstanding campaign partnership with Collier Schorr as an echo of Versace with Avedon and Weber. Despite the antagonistic moniker, Versus is shaping up to be a useful complementary satellite of planet Versace. After that party, its next orbit will find him at London fashion week with a full show in September.
