After a couple of shows in Los Angeles and Cannes, Donatella Versace was back on home turf with her new collection, in more ways than one. At a preview in the company’s expansive new Milan headquarters the day before the show, she said she looked back at her brother Gianni’s fall 1995 collection as a starting point this season. “I thought it looked fresh and contemporary,” she said.
As vintage Versace goes, fall 1995 was an outlier, as ladylike as the collections that came before (safety pins) and after (the J.Lo jungle dress) were dangerous. Having slouched our way through the pandemic and its aftermath, many of us are feeling more inclined to dress up; Donatella too, it would seem, by the fact that she chose this show to bring back.
The 1990s have been a through line of the spring 2024 collections so far. A quarter century has passed—gasp!—and a new generation has come of age, one that considers the ’90s more or less ancient history. Though the fall ’95 collection predated internet coverage, it isn’t all that hard to find online now, and with the arrival of The Super Models on Apple TV, interest in the era is only likely to grow.
Making the most of those synergies, Versace orchestrated the return of Claudia Schiffer to the runway. The German model walked that show all those years ago, and looked more or less unchanged tonight in a lime green damier check chainmail bustier dress. The clothes themselves, however, got a thorough update, starting with Versace’s rejection of pants—this season shorts are the thing, in case you hadn’t noticed—and also including looser, more exaggerated jacket proportions, and the dismissal of the original show’s little white gloves, a dated accessory if ever there were one.
The most pronounced change between Versace now and Versace then is what constitutes “dressed up.” Where the show of olde included a dozen-plus evening gowns, this one highlighted printed silk twill pajamas, beaded twinsets with matching bikini briefs, and almost bleached-out jeans and denim jackets embellished with pearls and crystals, for the girls and the guys. Fun factoid: The men’s five-button suit jacket worn over beaded boxers was modeled after a tour costume Donatella made for Prince way back when.