VERSACE PRE FALL 2021

Donatellamamamia says “The collection is dedicated to all those men and women who are self-confident, aware of who they are, authentic. It’s a celebration of individual identity and personality.” She left out have a big closet  museum!

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Id prefer to say that this highly referenced mediocre and rather pedestrian collection is wearable and nothing to set off any fireworks in celebration of as it’s just clothes. Yes, it does speak to the times in the case of being pretty much wearable for no particular reason other than to get dressed but hell, when you reference everyone and everything from Rick Owens to Brooks Brothers to Thierry Mugler, I say why is there a cause for any kind of party!?

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She shops for a new client every season these days and when things get a bit too banal, she slaps a logo on it and believes it’s original and individual. It is neither ...it’s just plain tired, boring and lazy.

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There is absolutely nothing here that says Versace; Gianni must be spinning in his grave with a collection that looks like this and has his name attached to it!

Versace men’s fall 2019

Think of it this way … Tom of Finland meets Hermès meets Jeremy Scott meets Donatellamamamia, meets Walter Van Beirendonck meets Gianni Versace and they all crowd onto a bus and throw piles of clothes in the aisle and tell the models to pick what they want, pile it on and to  be as outrageous as possible!

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Comic book colors, feathers, smoked see thru vinyl, printed harnesses, Medusa prints and still with trainers and knit hats ... la signora proclaimed in past days “yes Versace will remain a luxury label” and so my question is... what collection was she speaking about?  The feathers peeking out of herringbone coats and neon colored sunglasses, bottle cap printed jackets and leathers with car logos just about sealed the deal that she needs to get a grip or she will be depending on theft to get rid of this stuff. Who in hell wants to spend this kind of money to look like a fool? 

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Let’s also speak of the homeboy/homie/hip hop drooping waists to expose the underwear and the cargo pants and jogging suits and Frankenstein shoes. What happened to Gianni's dangerously close to overtly sexual razor sharp menswear? It was slick, precise and teetering on the edge of acceptability and now we have a riot of color and a circus worth of costumes for a crowd I didn’t exists or maybe it’s a clientele that doesn’t exist yet. Whichever it is, you can be sure that coming from someone who ONLY wore Versace starting in the  70s through the 80’s, I would be ashamed and embarrassed to even be caught dead in this shit.

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Good luck Capri Holdings!

Versace prefall 2019

Aptly or purposely shown on what would have been Gianni's 72^nd birthday, Donatellamamamia has surely taken a good long look at the archive. In doing so, the collection comes off as a rift of Gianni’s greatest hits with a few of Donatella’s more memorable moments. Whether prints or safety pins or shapes and silhouettes it’s more Gianni and less the schvester; perhaps some of it a little over amped up but still very much Versace in its truest vein.

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Apparently or hopefully now that Donatellamamamia has a boss to answer to as well as a board, it is possible that the edict came down to tamp down on the wacko and bring  back the women , not the kids, but the ladies who can afford to own and wear Versace, the time is right, women are more gym conscious  than ever and the clothes certainly reflect that mood. Well all things being equal of course there were some super clunkers like the patent dresses but there sure was a lot of other pieces to choose from that might  in fact restore the luster of the brand when it was in Gianni’s hands and Donatellamamamia was the sidekick. .. and no she didn’t go all Brooks Brothers … she went to heart of the brand to possibly recapture the audience and the attention that it once had … no question it has been tweaked for a newer generation that never saw or knew that Gianni existed.

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Don’t get me wrong, the collection is plenty sexy and occasionally overtly so but even if it is print centric, the clothes work and speak much more to the DNA of the brand than they have in recent seasons other than the spectacular greatest hits collection. Whether this is a trend or just getting off on the right foot remains to be seen but to me .....

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I’ll take this over 70% of the collections that signora has shown since Gianni's demise. Tailoring is key here along with hard lines ... it’s Gianni tough sexy hot fashion. Take note even the styling for the most part has been greatly toned down.

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VERSACE SPRING 2019

Many years ago, right after Gianni died, in an interview, Donatella declared “I am not a designer.”  And as Estelle Parsons once screeched in Bonnie and Clyde “MY EYES! MY EYES!” 

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In what can only be described as head scratching, eye rubbing and kaleidoscopic, Donatellamamamia has just about eviscerated any trace of her late brother. The collection looks as if the concept was an assigment for Project Runway where a cutting room floor was knee deep in scraps of printed material and the objective was create a collection from these scraps ad just make it seam splitting tight.

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This blinding display of prints (makes the archive of Emanuel Ungaro look like Talbots), the orgy of color and the over wrought and over design of these pieces is mind boggling and yet all it adds up to is clothes for the sake of clothes. 

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Slapping a logo on a  tee shirt  or on the vamp of a shoe doesn’t make this any better, the clothes look ill fitted, even the supposed little black sexy dresses are scary in everything they DON’T do while the leathers look clumsy and worse … cheap. The only sexy aspect of these clothes is that they are in many instances abundantly and unattractively tight as in streetwalker tight.

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Hard to believe that she couldn’t ride out on the coattails of the amazing retrospective show she presented not long ago and hold onto that glory. Instead she has apparently decided SHE IS A DESIGNER! … that would be a no!

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Versace MFW spring 2018

The Time Machine is a science fiction novel by H. G. Wells, published in 1895 and written as a frame narrative. The work is generally credited with the popularization of the concept of time travel by using a vehicle that allows an operator to travel purposely and selectively forwards or backwards in time. The term "time machine", coined by Wells, is now almost universally used to refer to such a vehicle.

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Unequivocally this was THE collection dedicated to her late brother Gianni and unequivocally this was maybe the most wonderful collection and maybe the savviest thing that she could have done at a time when fashion really needs to be reminded of those who made it theater and those who actually designed what today’s designers merely copy. We went back to the 80s when Gianni and Ratti teamed up for what became a literally groundbreaking moment in fashion. 

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So much of what you saw was rehash with minor, if any tweaking, but who cares? This is unabashed unapologetic 1000% who the designer and the brand was ... sexy, tough, tailored, hot, over the top and designed by a designer!! His style, his way and let’s say that even the pieces that were filtered in under Donatellamamamia’s hand looked mighty good when put in context of the brands DNA.

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If the woman was really brilliant this would be the time for her to say adios and go out with a bang instead of a whimper but that’s doubtful. What is most intriguing is how when you  see these clothes some 30 odd years later and given the direction that fashion has taken.. These clothes still rock which is hard to believe that we would ever say they are classics.

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At any rate this was rock em sock em hit em in the face Versace at its most glorious

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