How to wear Haute Couture to a music festival, by Atelier Versace Fall 2015

Atelier Versace Fall 2015

“I call the collection tough, but ethereal at the same time” Donatella Versace said backstage after the show «We wanted to show the softer side of Versace, it’s a bit romantic, I’m‎ not a piece of wood all the time!”. So here was a softened-up, tendrilly vision for Atelier Versace: couture festival girls in garlanded headbands, vaguely Renaissance-medieval sleeves, hyper-sculpted and hand-worked jackets over similarly assembled minis and tight pants in the rearview mirror, and raw-edged chiffon trailing off in ethereal directions on a glass runway paved over hundreds of mauve, purple, and green orchids. This collection was really about evening dressing, and within her finely honed message, Versace showed considerable diversity, from fluid columns to a pair of feathered-out ballgowns. Versace Atelier Fall 2015 show was a sharp U-turn from her recent couture and ready-to-wear outings, with their emojis, their made-for-Instagram logo dresses, and their computer precision. Where she wound up felt somewhere in the vicinity of Laurel Canyon by way of the Coachella Valley, if festivalgoers wore bespoke dresses made from hand-painted floral fil coupe, or unraveling strips of pastel chiffon cinched across the torso by narrower strips of chain mail.

Anja Rubik

Anna Ewers