September 25, 2021 |
Dua! Naomi! Lourdes! Emily! Donatella Versace’s girl gang can be relied upon to bring the star factor to Milan Fashion Week and her SS22 collection delivered, alright. But while Lipa officially opened the show, she wasn’t the first on the catwalk.
Two by two, shirtless models walked in silent unison and took their positions behind our seats and started pulling on ropes to make the overhead silk scarf canopy billow. It set the scene for a show that was all about the scarf – or the Versace foulard to be precise. The way to “add Versace attitude to any look”, relayed the show notes, this season “it is no longer fluid or dreamy, the scarf is provocative, sexy, wound tight,” said Donatella.
It arrived as handkerchief tops, sleeves on trench coats, shirt dresses and a full PJ look, as well as more discreetly on collars, belts and bustiers. Those other great Versace signatures, the safety pin and the Medusa head, were dominant too, keeping yet more foulards in place behind slashes and slits. “It’s as if pieces have been ripped apart and rapidly stitched back together again,” relayed the show notes, adding that the designs felt “thrown together, ripped apart and unpolished”. Unpolished? Versace? Not a jot. This was haphazard in the most high-wattage of ways.
Away from the fabulousness of the foulards came hot-house bustier dresses and wet-look tailoring in latex, a line in Versace Varsity for the boys and head-to-toe shimmer in which saw Dua closed the show. “I’ll be your Versace girl forever!” she declared to Donatella later on Instagram. Welcome to the Versace gang, what a perfect fit.
Photography courtesy of Versace.
