Versace Show

Show Report

Dolly Jones

25/09/2009

EVERYBODY may have hailed Donatella Versace as having come of age when she gave up the mega wattage sex-on-legs dresses and presented a slightly more demure muse some seasons ago, but today she reverted to what she really loves: tight, cutaway, glossy, studded, corsetted, shiny - and only to be worn by the sort of women she casts for her shows. This afternoon's starred Lily Donaldson and Natasha Poly, to give an idea of the sort of standard she's talking.

Whether you can see yourself in a bright yellow and green printed sheer jersey or lace top, with long sleeves and a base-of-spine low back, worn with a micro mini of transparent PVC, featuring the same print (and matching big knickers under that - in fact they were pretty much the biggest thing in this show) - is immaterial, you can't help but enjoy a Versace runway for its glamazonian, perfect women, their bodies tested to the fashion limit.

Strapless mini dresses - blatantly shirking the adage that a girl should show off her legs or her cleavage, but never both - carried the same popping prints, green and yellow or lilac, white and black, and featured studded seams or were held together by rows of metallic staples.

Sportier versions came in strips of yellow, white and turquoise fine mesh fabric with metallic bodywork, while fine black-on-white polka dots made for the most bodycon trouser suits possible.

A flesh-coloured leather dress had a fine pattern stamped out of it, while a white cross-backed cocktail dress was slightly less full on, but then Donatella brought back her brother's signature metallic mesh, collaging triangles of it amid panels of leather, jersey and bare flesh in the most difficult of places - one dress was cutaway from under the right breast in a half moon all the way to the hip bone below, another was sliced below the ribcage at the back - breathing in won't help you there.

The longer dresses she finished with had heavy metallic detailing at the shoulders, making high fashion warriors of her girls - and the finale saw the curtains fall away to show them all standing with their fiercest possible expressions on a staircase above us, with Donatella in front of them smiling - do you dare to disagree?