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Atelier Versace

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The Atelier Versace show began with wolf whistles. Naomi Campbell slinked down the runway like only Naomi can, in a jacket held together—barely—with crystal hooks and eyes. Underneath she wore a black lace bra, and she was flashing a substantial swath of upper thigh. It was Campbell’s first time on a Versace runway since Gianni’s death in 1997. Uma Thurman, Emma Roberts, and Zachary Quinto looked on from the front row.

The inspiration for the new collection, easily Donatella’s most confident since she returned to couture a year and a half ago, was the black-and-white photography of the thirties, updated for the twenty-first century. “Horst and Man Ray,” Versace confirmed at the cocktail party that followed the show. Referring to the era, she said, “It was a moment about precision, about perfection, and lots of work.”

There was no shortage of work here. Those crystal hooks and eyes, for starters, traced the dresses’ anatomical seams and trimmed provocative open panels on the front or back, revealing embroidered bustiers. A trenchcoat was elaborately pieced together from strips of knitted mink, shredded tulle, and sequined lace—same goes for the show’s racy cropped sweaters. And a cat suit that plunged down to Lindsey Wixson’s navel was paneled from lace, net, and handwoven leather. That piece was the least thirties-ish of the lot, but all of the models wore real diamond jewelry designed by Versace, evocative of the glamour of old Hollywood.

For all the show’s intricate, laborious details, though, the big story was skin. And we don’t mean the mink-lined crocodile trenchcoat with sleeves embroidered in sequins in a matching shade of purple. The models on tonight’s runway exposed significantly more flesh than the subject in Horst’s famous shot of Mainbocher’s corset—hips, décolleté, entire torsos. Same as it ever was chez Versace. But in the end, the most gorgeous number was probably the most discreet—an evening dress with an illusion neckline embroidered in a flame pattern of black and midnight blue tulle and sequins.
—Nicole Phelps
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Dries Van Noten

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Dries Van Noten opens a career retrospective at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris next year, and, as part of the prep, he’s been poking around in the museum’s archives. Which is how he became absorbed by all the “pretty, but strange” flower prints he came across, even more so because they were elements of menswear over the centuries. That fit right in with Van Noten’s project of late—the mutation of men’s classics with the silken finery of feminine fabrics. So he got thinking about the men who’d worn flowers. They were an eclectic coachload: Louis Seize, Oscar Wilde, Jean Cocteau, Jimi Hendrix…. Not just dandies, either. Van Noten included modern-day surf rats. “From one step to another step,” he mused. “That’s exactly how the exhibition is taking shape, too.”

It may be a season of dark flowers in the world of menswear, but Van Noten edged his peers with a collection that thoroughly explored every possible permutation of the idea. Prints were derived from eighteenth-century rococo, scans of freshly cut blooms or Hawaiian gothic, and combined in unlikely silhouettes and fabrications. There was a delicate dévoré shirt, for instance, tucked into lustrous moiré trousers, then wrapped in a robe of purest kitsch. And a damask coat wrapping surf shorts and something sheer and floral.

Van Noten agreed there was defiance in the almost total domination of the flowers, or as he put it, “Seeing how far you can go with transparent shirts and dévoré and still be able to say, ‘Hey man, this is men’s clothes.'” There will be plenty of men who disagree with the designer on that point, but working on the retrospective for a year has probably made him more defiant, more about “the things I love, the things I come back to.” This season, that meant the return of bullion embroidery, as a muted but rich decoration on waistbands, belts, a big military-ish coat. Wear it with floral surf shorts and you’d nail the spirit of the collection to the floor.

But eclecticism has always been Van Noten’s calling card. The live soundtrack today was provided by drummer Cindy Blackman Santana. The designer wanted one instrument and, given how dark he felt his palette was, drums seemed suitably aggressive. And he thought the dark flowers would benefit from a gold backdrop—to match the bullion, too—so Santana drummed and the models walked against huge electric sheets of Mylar, spotlighted so they looked like water shimmering in sunlight. It was another typically gorgeous effect from a fashion showman who excels at them.
—Tim Blanks
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