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Wys³any: Czw 17:15, 12 Gru 2013 Temat postu: Monochrome chic |
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Monochrome chic
Donatella Versace: 'They are my favourite colours because it's how I see life right now.'
Donatella Versace now sees her life in monochrome shades, as reflected in her Spring/Summer 2007 collection. MENTION Versace, and 1980sstyle rock star excesses, lurid colours and rococo flourishes come to mind. But that was then. Today, the house of Versace is a different, more sober beast altogether. In an article in The Independent, creative director Donatella Versace declared her new affinity for the monochromatic: "They are my favourite colours because it's how I see life right now. Either black or white." Her Spring/Summer '07 collection,[url=http://www.sport.fr/business/louisvuitton.html]louis vuitton femmes[/url], which she unveiled in Milan recently, bears testament to her words. Instead of overthetop Dynasty wear, she showed ladylike outfits with clean lines, in hues of black, white, pink, gold and even gasp! beige. Ladylike outfits with clean lines, in hues of black, white and pink are the order of the day, from Versace.
Hovering around backstage before the show, Donatella, 51, is much tinier than her largerthanlife persona suggests. Her body is taut, her skin famously tanned, and she is sheathed completely in black. Apart from the vertiginous platform heels she wears de rigueur this season for all the fashion houses, hers included her look is sleek and streamlined. This is all rather disconcerting, considering she is a woman known for wearing diamond rings the size of the Rock of Gibraltar, especially when she now lists "wearing too much jewellery" as one of fashion's nonos. The other, she says, is sporting "too much hair and makeup". When she sees my look of surprise, she quickly adds: "You can have one or the other, but not both at the same time." New and improved It would be fair to say this new, improved Donatella is not the same as the one who went into rehab to cure her 18year cocaine addiction two years ago. But while you can take the glam out of the glamazon, you cannot take the glamazon out of the glam. The fashion house which bears her name may have undergone a financial and stylistic streamlining since the appointment of its new CEO Giancarlo Di Risio in 2004, but Donatella is making sure it still bears her unmistakeable imprint. No one, for example, throws a party quite like her. Versace's aftershow bash was arguably the best during the Spring 2007 collection shows at the Milan Fashion Week last September, thanks to another diminutive but largerthanlife personality Prince. Prince also put together the music for her runway show, during which he sat in the front row, flanked by his two blonde backup singers. Later in the night, he entertained 200 of Versace's guests with a full 90minute set, which included hits like Let's Go Crazy, Purple Rain, Cream and If I Was Your Girlfriend. Pic above and below: Models in monochromatic mode in some of Versace's Spring/Summer '07 designs.
It is a coup only Donatella could have pulled off. But Prince is the closest thing you will get to "rock star" in the Versace ethos today. While she herself still admits to being a rock chick "I listen to my iPod all the time. I love all kinds of music" there has been a concerted effort recently to get her label to grow up, so to speak. Donatella took over designing duties at Versace after her brother Gianni was gunned down in Florida in 1997. While both siblings had been trained in knitwear design, Donatella's importance to her brother, when he was alive, was as a muse, although he did give her a fashion line of her own, Versus. When she took over after Gianni's death, the company's profits started sinking. The company swung into profitability this year after two years of losses, largely due to Di Risio, whose entry into the Versace fold marked the transformation of the company from a familyowned to a managerowned one. Donatella and her brother Santo, who were former coCEOs, are now vicepresident and president, respectively. However, sales remained essentially flat, dipping less than a percentage point to 148mil euros (RM695.6mil). And revenues are expected to be hit going into 2007 as the company refurbishes its boutiques worldwide to its new blackandwhite retail concept, a task which should be completed by March. Versace updated It is these new concept boutiques that really drive home the updated Versace image to the casual observer. Step into one and you might think you had walked into Prada instead. Gone are the gold hardware and ornate finishings. In their place are steel and glass displays against discreet pistachio walls. As minimal as the Medusa is maximal, the revamped version is a series of angular lines which bend in and out to form an infinite lattice. Versace is pitching itself as an elegant luxury label, not only in fashion but also in lifestyle. Last year, it acquired a bagmaking factory in Burago, just outside Milan, indicating its intent to muscle in on the lucrative market currently dominated by players like Prada, Fendi and Louis Vuitton. It is also paying more attention to accessories, many of which will fall under the revamped Versus line, which will be repositioned as an independent highend, futuristic and techinspired brand. Then there are the bold new forays into the luxury lifestyle market, like the Lamborghini Murcielago LP 640 Versace, a limitededition sports car which comes with couture accessories like matching hisandhers suitcases, a suit carrier, a pair of calfskin driving shoes, a pair of driving gloves, and matching hisandhers chrono watches. The ultimate marriage of luxury and technology, however, will be taking place in the skies. Versace recently became the first fashion house to hook up with an aviation company by inking a deal with TAG Aviation, a Saudiowned private jet company, to customise plane interiors for the latter's clients. The Middle East, which favours the Italian house's traditional baroque aesthetic, is, after all, a key market. And Versace knows this. In 2008, it will open its second Palazzo Versace luxury hotel in Dubai. The other Palazzo Versace is in Australia's Gold Coast. On the public image front, it especially wants to regain its stature in the influential American market where it is largely seen as an overblown relic of the 1980s and 1990s. Suffice to say there will be no more fashtrash safetypin dresses of the kind that propelled modelactress Elizabeth Hurley into the public consciousness in 1994. Donatella acknowledges the end of that era a little wistfully: "The fashion business is more precise now." Yes, the new Versace is all about black and white occasional showers of purple rain notwithstanding. The Straits Times Singapore / Asia News Network |
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