But is it, really, worth it? That is always the question to ask when yet another designer collaboration with a high street store comes trundling along, powered by an enormous hype machine and general air of customer hysteria at the prospect of buying a dress with a name in it that normally signifies a quadruple-figure price tag. The answer, to be honest, is sometimes yes, often no.
Versace's collaboration with H&M, which goes on sale from 17 November, could easily have fallen more in the latter camp. The label is associated with molto molto sexiness, with tiny metallic dresses and wildly over-the-top prints. These clothes look incredible when done with expensive fabrics and tailoring, and when worn on yachts and the red carpet, but a lot less so when done on the cheap.
But in New York on Tuesday night, Donatella Versace proved such cynicism wrong. Mainly. She wisely perceived that what H&M shoppers want is not just the designer name in their clothes; they want to dress like the celebrities they have seen wear those designer's clothes. This meant wheeling out the brand's greatest hits from decades past, whether they were designed by her or her late brother Gianni, such as a version of the palm print dress J-Lo wore to the Grammys in 2000 and the riotous leopard prints Linda Evangelista wore in the famous supermodel-heavy adverts of the 1990s.
Impressively, the prints were gorgeous. The plain pinafores and tunics also looked well-made, stylish and a class above what is generally found on the high street. The same, however, cannot be said of the tiny metallic dresses, which may well have the Versace DNA but, when done on the cheap, look more like they have the Jane Norman DNA.
But those aside, this was a good, thought-through collection. Cue customer hysteria.
