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Versace Spring/Summer 2025
In this episode of Backstage Pass, Tim Blanks goes backstage at Versace’s Spring/Summer 25 show to interview designer Donatella Versace on her inspiration for the brand’s latest collection.
Donatella Versace’s message for her show in Milan on Friday was crystal clear. “Joy!”, she declared. “We’re living in terrible times now, we feel the horror of what’s going on next to us, so I want to be positive.”
In her recent collections, Donatella has taken herself back to her happy place: Versace in the mid-90s. “A moment of rebellion and joy, everyone giving the best of themselves,” she remembered mistily. “Fashion everywhere.” But for Spring 25, her particular focus was not on Versace but on Versus, Versace’s poptastic younger collection. Her mood board was covered with Bruce Weber’s photographs of moody young beauties wearing the Versus collection for Spring 97.
Versus was always Donatella’s baby, its sensibility very much an extension of her own love of music and fabulous nights out. You could feel her enthusiasm resurfacing as she talked about revisiting the clashing colours and patterns and prints of that 97 collection. And she’s found a new audience to love it all right along with her. It sounded like Hyunjin from the Korean K-poppers Stray Kids had brought at least a few million of his 22 million Instagram followers along to the show on Friday. They screamed obligingly outside the venue. It was much more decorous at the presentation of the original Spring 97 collection, when Elton John and Bon Jovi performed at the after-party. There’d been other changes too. Versace’s signature metal mesh is now 3D-printed, lighter than ever. Once, it was impossible to print on it so graphics had to be handpainted. In this collection, the florals could be printed directly on the mesh.
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One curious observation about that Versus show nearly 30 years ago is how much the styling made it feel like it was coming at the tail end of grunge. The clothes weren’t too far away from what Marc Jacobs and Anna Sui had been showing. Now, of course, the look of the presentation is much more accomplished, but in the lace-trimmed slips, the layers of light cardigans, the 40s dresses with chunky platforms, the pyjama-casual menswear worn with flipflops, and the colour scheme of yellow, brown, lilac and powder blue, there was still an insinuating streak of creative thrifting. Only now the butts of all the cigarettes that Donatella used to smoke have been recycled into decorative accessories for this new collection. That was almost enough to make her wonder whether she should start smoking again.
Watch more episodes of Backstage Pass with Tim Blanks:
