Donatella Versace launched her much-hyped collection for H&M in New York last night with a catwalk show and performances by Nicki Minaj and Prince.
BY Melissa Whitworth
Donatella Versace is not someone known to do things by halves. She is a woman who embodies her brand, in all its ochre-tanned, new-money, skin-tight, Technicolour glory. Versace has never valued discreet chic… If you've got it, flaunt it, is the label's credo.
So, with that larger-than-life ideal in mind, Donatella launched her collection for H&M last night in New York on a pier in the Hudson River. The assembled crowd: Uma Thurman, Blake Lively, Chloe Moretz, Jessica Alba, Linda Evangelista, Helena Christensen, Terry Richardson, Sophia Coppola, and every fashion luminary in town, entered the party through a long blacked-out tunnel to join a vast cocktail reception in a room decorated entirely with empty gold picture frames.
Doors then slid open to reveal another enormous room, with the catwalk and seats laid out.
"It's amazing that you can get a piece from such a legendary design house for very little money, and really beautiful pieces - now everyone can get a piece of it," Christensen told The Telegraph . "There have been a lot of great shoots, a lot of great moments and a lot of support," she said of how she collaborated with the house during her years as one of the original "Supers".
But the party wasn't really about the clothes. The fashion world has already seen the collection: images were released to the press last month. What it showed was the pulling power the house of Versace still holds: this wasn't fashion week, and yet the event had all the marks of a star-studded runway event. To celebrate a new high street collaboration (when designer/ high street collaborations are two-a-penny now) with a party of such scale and a performance by Prince, Versace was making her influence - and love of unadulterated glamour - known.
Nicki Minaj arrived in a towering, hip-hop-meets-Marie Antoinette style hairdo, adorned with bejeweled palm fronds, but she was outshone by the arrival of Prince who, to a round of applause, took his seat in the front show shortly after.
The runway show over, another set of doors opened, leading to a concert stage where Minaj performed (designer Alexander Wang sang out all the words to her songs). But it was Prince's set that everyone was really waiting for.
"I am so pleased to share with so many the excitement of this collaboration with H&M," Versace told WWD earlier this week of her plans for the collection's launch. "To have my friend, the great, the amazing, the one and only Prince, and the extraordinary Nicki Minaj both perform at the event, will create exactly the feeling of joy and glamour I want this partnership to express."
A gentle reminder that the house of Versace doesn't believe in doing anything - not even a foray onto the high street - that's understated.
