“I think I’m a feminist,” Donatella Versace said in 2013. “I show women, you can do it.”
Although some may have raised a quizzical eyebrow at this statement, the idea of the self-made woman has been a theme of her most recent collections.
Last week at London fashion week, she debuted her furiously futuristic show for her spin-off label, explaining that the Versus Versace woman was a “bad girl” who “had her own rules and … personality”.
Was she really just talking about herself? Possibly. Still, the clothes on the catwalk at Friday’s show in Milan were filled with riffs on feminine modernity.
To the soundtrack of a specially written trance song by Violet + Photonz (sample lyric: “This show is for the women taking the lead”), we saw the superheroine look – a jumpsuit worn with a billowy parachute cape attached, in psychedelic greens and purples – and the millennial businesswoman, in a deep-V dinner jacket clasped with a chunky belt and worn with skintight leggings.
Plus, the Donatella-isation of Self Portrait’s Azaelea (her version of the “dress for the selfie generation”) substituted lace for crystal chainmail and an OTT neckline.
Other elements, such as the bag modelled on an electric guitar and a rain mac with a peephole of plastic, spoke to a millennial born of equal parts autonomy and sexuality.
That the looks were modelled by Gigi Hadid, Jourdan Dunn and Naomi Campbell (not to mention Serena Williams in the frow) added to the overarching alpha woman theme of the show.
In a statement, Versace spoke of “a woman’s freedom: freedom of movement, freedom of activity, freedom to fight for their ideas, freedom to be whomever you want to be”.
Her words about the show underlined a narrative well-known to fashion folk: Versace is the Madonna of fashion.
Like the singer, she has an uncanny ability to sniff out the latest trends and make them her own. This time it was sportswear, which she called “the future” before the show.
Mixing materials like neoprene with nylon and leather suggested a place where sportswear mixed seamlessly with the high end, a fantasy closet for an athleisure princess.
But what she also shares with La Ciccone is an ability to stretch our ideas about what it means to be a feminist.
