STYLE

By Alissa Thomas

24 September 2024

MFW: Il Nuovo Fantastico! Versace Speaks To A Summer Of Joy

For Spring Summer 2025, Donatella reached into her archives for a collection that is both gleefully nostalgic and enticingly modern.

Gigi Hadid walks for Versace Spring Summer 2025

In 1989 Donatella Versace’s Versus brand was created. A diffusion label she could stylistically control while her brother Gianni continued to lead Versace. It’s look was youthful, fresh and wearable, a notch down from Versace’s more avant garde mode. And while she orchestrated a runway show by 1997, following her brother’s death in 1998, she would become director of the entire company.

This season, for Spring Summer 2025, Donatella revisited her Versus era with a collection dedicated to its ease of wear and pre-Millienia spirit. In show notes, the Maison explained this to be a season of unbridled joy, mixing prints with textual fabrics for a visceral experience. Painterly poppies, wild roses and pretty paisleys clashed happily against lilac and lemon chevrons, pastel leathers and golden mosaics. And there was a distinct colour family, soft mauves and yellows contrasting pleasantly against tan leathers and rich sky blues. It was a little Seventies, a little Nineties.

Gigi Hadid walked, wearing a sweet poppy print asymmetric gown, one that the model said in a video post show that she was really enjoying “I’m getting into dresses now, watch out!” As always, though, the fluidity of the fabrics made for that show stopping Versace sexiness, with skirts, dresses, shirts, and trousers all creating movement with the body via delicate silks, satins and shimmering glow mesh metallics. It was a return to that fun, flirty Versus form. In fact, many of the pieces were almost identical to her 1997 collection. The fitted chevron knits, the satin poppy prints, and the collection of shiny, colourful party frocks, all making their way back into the Versace vernacular.

This collection certainly reverberates a youthful form, one that Donatella has celebrated throughout her career and seems to feel genuinely passionate about. Her knack for a bias-cut slip dress, a bodice gown and a slippy negligee skirt is unprecedented, a vibe both deliciously Italian and joyfully jovial, it is also unashamedly Versace.