There are few duos in the world with the combined star power of Donatella Versace and Dua Lipa: the former, a fashion icon and enduring powerhouse of bombshell glamour; the latter, the ambassador for a generation of young women reframing those categories through a new lens. “I admire her confidence, and the way she projects glamour,” drawls Donatella in her thick Italian accent a few hours before they unveil their co-designed collection for her family house. “Glamour is not the same for everybody and the way that she projects it is amazing.”
There’s something indisputably magnetic about Donatella’s lifelong commitment to that cause; while her late brother first established the template, the ways in which she has upheld and (literally) embodied a particular Italianate fantasy is legendary. In Donatella’s world, glamour appears coiffed and embellished and laden with diamonds; on the afternoon before the show, she is dressed in a sugary pink suit, with co-ordinating sky-high platforms, lipgloss and mani-pedi, her flaxen hair flawless, her make-up meticulous. Dua, sitting by her side, appears flawless but in a slightly different fashion: a tweed jacket, jeans, a bouncy blow-dry. Every so often, she grabs Donatella’s hand and the two of them sit together, fingers interlocked. “I feel very protective of her – but she doesn’t need my protection,” says Donatella. “Her strength, her loyalty; her confidence – everything Donatella embodies is very inspiring for me,” continues Dua. “I feel lucky to not only call her my friend, but really see her as my family.”
It’s the sort of phrase familiar to anyone abreast of fashion’s relentless stream of collaborations and endorsement deals – but there’s something that rings true in this instance. Donatella and Dua are two women who revel in their own high-camp, hyper-femme theatrics – and their co-designed collection, La Vacanza, is a wardrobe befitting that spirit, first conceived on a night out together in New York. Unveiled in Cannes during the film festival (if the hotel lobbies are anything to go by, the most curiously and relentlessly glamorous place imaginable) and available for purchase immediately, it translated the codes of Versace – both Gianni and Donatella’s – for the wardrobes of today. Archival prints and cuts were reworked with a fluid ease; metallic mesh replaced with crystal embellishment (“for the price-point” demurs Donatella); Christy and Cindy and Claudia’s shimmering nineties staples now revised with “a modern twist,” expresses Dua, who was born in 1995. Ultimately: a lineup of Barbie-core classics revived for the Euphoria generation.
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“We talked about what we liked, went through archive pictures, and Dua told me how her generation could wear these things in a more contemporary way,” explains Donatella. “La Vacanza is the holiday,” says Dua. “Basically, we wanted to make the holiday wardrobe that I saw myself wearing all summer and that I felt other people would enjoy. It’s fun, it’s flirty… we wanna get dressed and look cute.”
That’s the sort of sentiment that often gets lost along the way in fashion: the idea that women might want to dress up and feel confident and sexy, in a manner designed by confident, sexy women. “Donatella has a very special thing that not many designers do – she really cares about how women feel in the clothes,” Dua continues. “She wants you to feel strong and empowered.” On the runway, at sunset in the hills above the Mediterranean, as models from Irina Shayk to Precious Lee and Amelia Gray served high camp with even higher bouffants and fabulously sexy, highest-drama walks onto the runway, that message rang out crystal clear. A hot girl summer is back on the cards, and Donatella and Dua are leading the charge.
Credits
All images courtesy of Versace