The confluence of Dua Lipa, Naomi Campbell, Emily Ratajkowski, and Lourdes Leon on the Versace runway tonight almost broke the internet. It definitely crashed Versace’s website momentarily, so heavy was the traffic to its livestream. The scene outside the Milan venue was just as frenetic, with young people lining up for in-person sightings. Donatella Versace knows how to capture the world’s attention, as her regal three-in-one look for Lil Nas X at the Met Gala last week amply demonstrated.
Tonight’s show was a bright, shiny revival of Versace’s many hits, aimed straight at the heart of the TikTok generation—young people for whom Dua and Lil Nas are household names, but who may be less familiar with the supermodels who helped propel the brand to fame 30 years ago. Naomi Campbell, though, was in the house to help show the new-gen models how it’s done.
Dua opened the show in a cut-out jacket and slashed skirt tricked out in multicolor versions of the house-famous safety pins, and closed it in the even more iconic chain mail, dipped hot pink for the occasion. In between, Versace kept things young and playful, showing basketball silks and pajama sets in the archival Medusa print and the new La Greca print, and using the patterns for accents: a handkerchief top here, a bikini top there, and as patchwork on baggy faded blue jeans. For the first-time buyer, there were logo tees. The color palette was pure pop: a long run of Miami neons was bookended by sections of black, with a brief segue into collegiate red that featured what might be Versace’s first varsity letterman’s jacket. These clothes would be right at home in Miami, not least of all Imaan Hammam and Kiki Willems’s vinyl bustier dresses.
Yesterday, rumors circulated that Versace is planning a collaboration with Fendi’s Kim Jones and Silvia Venturini Fendi. Triggered by a mysterious emailed invitation for Sunday evening, the questions about what Donatella has planned could’ve threatened to upstage tonight’s mainline show, but that’d never happen. There’s no upstaging Donatella Versace.
