After various seasons as the opening Sunday night act of the haute couture, Donatella Versace decided to go back to basics. Oh, don’t get me wrong—the new collection was as knock ’em dead and deliciously OTT as ever, rendered to a high level of inventive workmanship, of which more later. But rather than do one of her epically cast extravaganzas—the kind of shows where Gigi Hadid follows Karen Elson, who follows Natasha Poly, who follows Marjan Jonkman, who follows Naomi Campbell, who follows Raquel Zimmermann, before we finally get back to Hadid again—Donatella opted to present 17 looks on theatrically spotlighted mannequins on the second floor of her Avenue Montaigne boutique. Also, she herself was missing in action, or, at least, in Europe; she was elsewhere, presumably Milan.
Now, there are two schools of thought on this, which aren’t mutually exclusive. For one, it’s not hard to imagine that by withholding a runway show a few weeks before the red carpet show we call the Academy Awards, it allows greater opportunities to get these (relatively unseen) couture confections on A-list actresses, particularly this season, where it was all major, major evening and nothing for the hours of daylight at all. (Let’s forget for a minute the inconvenient fact that the Oscars begin in the bright afternoon sunshine of Los Angeles, but you get my point.) On the other hand, and this is a more controversial topic to broach, the incessant rumor mill around the arrival of a Very Famous Designer from another Very Famous House to aid and abet Versace has been going into overdrive of late. As of now, it’s only that, gossip, and it could be that’s all it ever will be. But who’d want to go through the rigmarole of having to talk about it to inquisitive journalists? You couldn’t blame Donatella for staying home.
But back to the main event: The collection. The idea this season was metamorphosis, what the house is calling “the beauty of transformation.” To put it more explicitly: By working with a relatively restrained metallic color palette of pink, gray, and a darkened silver, Donatella threw the work of her ateliers into ever greater focus, drawing on four themes—knots, pleats, organic, and metal. They utilized 10-and-counting knotting techniques for a slithery, shimmering goddess dress. One hundred and ten meters of Swarovski crystals were spun around the hooped underskirt of a fan-pleated ball gown, the stones gleaming from beneath their soft veil. Crystal snakeskin “scales” morphed into feathers on another dress. And the ateliers did a ton of work with chain mail, a material that others use but rarely if ever match this label in the perfection of execution, though it’s been exhilarating of late to see up-and-coming talents like Matty Bovan take it on. Donatella used it for an abbreviated (okay, it was really short) mirrored long-sleeved dress and a floor-length liquid column, both colored rose pink. Would it have been fun to see all this on the runway? Yes, absolutely, especially now, given how grim the world is at the moment; some Versace fabulosity would be a welcome distraction, even if only for a few moments. Still, if things work out, some of these looks will be seen by gazillions of viewers come the Oscars on February 26.
