Three little words you never have and never will associate with Donatella Versace and the house of Versace: Less is more. But here we are on a relatively sleepy Eighth Arrondissement Sunday, in a first-floor salon of the Versace store on the Avenue Montaigne—an intersecting arrangement of relatively small and anonymous rooms—viewing the 19 looks that comprise La Versace’s haute couture collection for this coming fall. Well, this coming fall might not be the best phrase to use here, since it makes them sound readily available. Basically, when you next see these clothes, they’ll be on red carpets the world over, though many are equally likely never going to appear anywhere near a camera, not even one on an iPhone, all primed for a selfie. The format chosen to present this collection focused on privacy and discretion—remember, this is a label that used to regularly and rather fabulously show at the Ritz in days gone by on a runway over the hotel’s swimming pool—which is why there were, apparently, a couple of looks that weren’t even shown to the press but which will be seen only by those women who actually order from the house.
Yet if under-the-radar was the order of the day for how Donatella chose to show her couture, it wasn’t evident from the collection itself. The starting point for it was her very medieval Fall 1998 collection—and the terrific accompanying campaign shot by Steven Meisel, a brooding dark masterpiece which out-GOTs GOT and starred the likes of Carolyn Murphy, Audrey Marnay, Maggie Rizer, and—remember her?—Sunniva Stordahl. Versace’s update resulted in major, major evening—a bravura performance of high-octane, super-sexy, and exquisitely and inventively worked looks, all bronze metallic scale embroideries, silver chains suspended in cobweb-like formations, and an embellishment that looked like crystal but which was actually beads faced with silver leaf. Eschewing the big production presentation afforded a chance to see the (rather incredible) handwork techniques close up. Not that everything was entirely handcrafted. A few pieces featured the first time the house had tried 3-D printing—an intricate scrolling neckline of a long gilded dress, and two snake-motif jeweled belts that encircled the waists of two dresses, one short and a miracle of sculpted pleats, the other an ultra-chic navy chiffon floor-length dress veiling a gleaming chain-mail body. Less is more but—this is Versace after all—more is more, too.
