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Versace's Star-Spangled Couture
By: Godfrey Deeny
Photos by Gruber & Swan-FWD
Paris, Jun 20, 2002/FWD/ --- No European fashion house has ever embraced America as much as
Versace, whose Atelier opened the Paris haute couture season with a powerfully sexy collection
before a trio of blonde starlets, a former president’s daughter and a noisy PETA attack.
Security was understandably tight at the Theatre de Chaillot Sunday when the stars entered.
A blonde Madonna arrived encircled by a half dozen heavies so large they looked inflated.
They sat front-row beside Gwyneth Paltrow – the actress she advised as a teenager to give up
cigarettes – and a blonde Sheryl Crow and Chelsea Clinton with curly haired male companion –
both attired in a black trouser suit, courtesy, one assumes, of Donatella.
The U.S. power pack had barely settled onto their gilt and velvet chairs when the first of
two PETA activists jumped on the catwalk yards from them to unfurl a sign that read
"Fur Kills."
With the exception of Madonna, the American contingent looked deeply alarmed.
Chelsea’s mouth was agape.
Even Vogue roving editor Andre Leon Talley, attired in a military coat of Guinness
Book of World Records proportions, looked startled.
The bouncers, however, were not asleep. A pair artfully hustled the shouting and kicking PETA
ladies off the runway within seconds, albeit bumping into Daily Telegraph fashion editor
Hilary Alexander, who recently broke her right arm and sports a sling.
Back on the catwalk, Donatella opened up with a bright series of pant suits and dresses
with Spanish influences jazzed up with Centurion frills that were both hot and chic.
Then
came a series of lace web dresses that were just right, a mixture of sass and sex appeal
with a brilliantly wrought couture finish.
Versace is always the first important couture show staged on the first day of the Paris
couture season each January; in other words, the first major women’s collection of every year.
This means that all the supermodels hit the catwalk tanned, rested and incredibly beautiful
from their New Year’s breaks.
None looked quite as stunning as did Sharon, Donatella’s new discovery, an Israeli goddess
who made her debut in the Versace men’s collection a week ago in Milan.
The stars and spangles came out at evening in slinky columns with tails, elegantly combining
Italian zest, French finish and American awards. Natalie Semanova looked stunning in a pale
blue lace dress, while Isabelli strutted out in a strikingly revealing beaded gown.
Ramping up the mood and transatlantic moment, DJ Junior Vasquez opened the proceedings with
a thundering techno funk version of the Doobie Brothers classic "Without Love."
For evening, Donatella’s hand was less sure – an overly yellow silk column with train could
have been edited out. But that’s a small complaint about a self-assured, self-confident
collection that glamorously celebrated the power and position of women today.
Not everyone will dig this collection. Most of the French press sat sullenly in their seats,
and few of them came to the after-show party in the new hot Paris basement restaurant Canteen.
With Saint Laurent’s departure, there’s been a closing of the ranks among the French, anxious
that his successor must be a French designer, or at the very least, with a Paris house.
Backstage there was the usual pandemonium and champagne. "Oh my God! I thought it was
incredible!" Chelsea gushed to Donatella.
And though Mademoiselle Clinton is a fashion novice, you know what? She was right.
Versace Haute Couture Spring 2002
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