“I feel it’s fashion’s responsibility to do a little bit to bring people’s spirits up,” Donatella Versace said during the group preview of her spring 2025 collection about channeling the power of positivity into her clothes.
She certainly brought the fashion crowd to a beautiful location — the 15th-century Castello Sforzesco, its tower and turrets all lit up and primed for picture taking.
But once Channing Tatum and the rest of the VIPs had been seated, and the soaring opera music turned electronic, an illuminated lightning bolt fractured the runway, setting the stage for the kids to storm the caste.
A riot of color and print in jarring combinations of yellow, brown, lavender and baby blue, the collection was casual from the start, with a feel that was more high street than luxury.
The emphasis was on separates, which were ’90s-reminiscent — pretty-ugly poppy floral print slips, silky button front blouses, zigzag polo sweaters, colored tights and slingbacks for women.
For men, the rave-ready wardrobe included jeans, sheer floral shirts and lounge sets, Medusa-print leather jackets, silky-front cardigan sweaters that put the male midriff front and center, and flip-flops worn with socks.
About halfway through the show, tailoring appeared, elevating the collection with Italian precision seen on a shrunken baby blue double-breasted blazer, for one, and a lemon yellow suit with flared pants that was unmistakably Versace.
The house’s iconic metal mesh was modernized, made of 3D-printed recycled nylon polymers, as seen on a cool yellow gold bustier dress, and also rendered more traditionally on drapey floral slips and more body-con pieces.
Accessories had a new quirkiness in line with the trend, including sculptural heels resembling wine glass stems and Versace crystal perfume bottles. There were also flower fragment brooches made of recycled plastic bottles and cigarette butts, which prompted Versace to say, “So I think I can still smoke.”
The spring 1997 Versus collection, from Versace’s now-defunct younger diffusion line, was a reference for the clashing colors and prints, slinky slips and shiny satin.
It was shown in New York the year before Gianni Versace died, when Donatella was only at the helm of Versus and times were simpler.
“It was freedom, happiness, not too much thinking,” she said of those days. “Fashion can be something intellectual, it can do that, but we also need positivity.”