Review of Versace Fall 2022 Fashion Show
A Formal Focus, But Still Very Versace
By Mark Wittmer
If Donatella Versace’s menswear show earlier this month – which marked the first departure from the co-ed format the brand had been utilizing for some time – suggested the hint of a new era for the designer and her brand, her Fall 2022 women’s show confirmed it. Stepping away from her trademark ostentation, she presented a collection that was relatively and surprisingly pared back, presenting a focused and distinctly modern vision of powerful women’s dressing that nonetheless still dripped with Versace’s legacy.
The legacy and sartorial prowess of founder Gianni Versace was most powerfully felt in the collection’s tailoring (an element that also anchored the men’s collection).
The designer also explored structured corsetry on tops and dresses, a traditional technique that’s having a modern moment, with its historical character of oppressive restriction being subverted for feminine power and sexual liberation. Indeed, the femme fatales strutting the catwalk exuded a deadly sense of poise and confidently restrained sexuality.
A side we don’t often get to see of her, the experimentalist in Donatella also subtly peeked out as the designer explored and enlarged structure and silhouette, creating hybrid sleeves or forsaking them altogether in favor of circular, structural capettes.
Another surprise, colors were almost entirely solid. There are one or two pieces with the familiar labyrinth print, but most of the prints we did see were long-established sartorial or textile codes, like banker stripes or houndstooth – a reminder of the brand’s central place in the last half-century of power dressing.
When the acidic-bright, head-turning color combinations that we expect from Versace did finally start to step on the runway, it felt as if the show began to lag a bit. From this point on there weren’t many new ideas, and most of the pieces were brightly colored versions of the strong black numbers we saw toward the beginning of the show.
The beating heart of the Versace identity was also present in streetwear moments – Donatella revisited the brand’s 90’s hip-hop connections with cargo pants and chunky sunglasses – and in the jewelry that threaded a focused opulence throughout the collection.
The collection struck a solid balance of guiding the brand forward in a focused and modern direction while always staying true to its iconic self. Devotees of Versace’s more ostentatious and provocative glam elements might have been a bit disappointed, but for those of us who knew that the house has something more smartly contemporary to offer, this show proved the house can bring it. We look forward to seeing more.