On her trips to Cuba, Donatella Versace fell in love with the people.
Hard done by, she acknowledges, but still with a sense of freedom that
she relishes.
Versace is a multimillion-dollar business, and it's not
hard to imagine the responsibilities and restrictions that attach
themselves to the figurehead of such a thing. So some of that Cuban
freedom kicked into gear with the collection Donatella showed tonight.
It was a steamroller of a show, driven along by Señor Coconut's Latin
versions of Kraftwerk classics "Showroom Dummies" and "The Robots."
A
few of the models walked shirtless in ice-creamily colored crepe de
chine suits, a vial of perfume dangling round their necks. One carried a
picnic basket laden with Versace housewares. Another had a backpack
filled with the same, including bone china cups ready for tea. (How's that
for product placement?) There was plenty of barrio fishnet, but there
was also broderie anglaise in jackets and jeans, slumdog aspiration in
loafers limned with gold link, a cardigan cabled in gold, and white
jeans embroidered with gold leaves.
The skyline of Havana was mirrored
in a blinding white guayabera and an intricately detailed lace shirt.
Leather jackets were artfully appliquéd with athletic forms, classical
in appearance, but equally likely to be the football-crazed street kids
Donatella saw on one of her trips.
Cuba providing the spine of a Versace collection? It sounds like yet
another self-indulgent high-low fashion incongruity. Still, it gave the
show a coherent, celebratory, maybe even aspirational core. And the
clothes at their best (those leather jackets, say) looked as vivid and
fresh as anything Donatella has offered of late.
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