STARS, STYLE AND SIGNATURE.

By Maximillien de Lafayette, Syndicated Columnist

Contributors: Fabiola Rossi, Penelope de Vassy and Marie Louise de Chambertin

GET RID OF  THIS VERSACE STYLE!

 

'Today we know the price of everything and the value of nothing." Oscar Wilde said that and he hadn't even seen In Style magazine.

In Style is the drop-dead worst magazine in print. It presents attractive objects in dizzying abundance -- fine, that's its job -- but the way it associates beautiful design with cheap unearned celebrity is wrong and dangerous. Even I feel fretful after I read it, and I've never run up a credit-card debt in my life. How many women go bankrupt after reading In Style?

Salma Hayek was on the cover last month wearing a dress by Versace, a fashion house so much better run by Donatella than the late Gianni. The dress is a pinkish beige satin, the color of a pearl whose oyster was tickled full-time in its own private ocean. Its ribbons swing outwards, then inwards, then outwards again, giving the superstructure a lot of support. I can't tell whether it's comfortable, but the knockoff (with miniskirt rather than Versace's strategic silk georgette rag skirt) I bought at Galeries Lafayette in Paris on Sept. 10 is loaded with Lycra and I could exercise in it with comfort.  

 

 

 

Photos:  Salma Hayeck

The label is Anti-Flirt. What are the Flirt people selling, the ribbons minus the dress? Adam Gopnik recently wrote in the New Yorker about the decline of the American department stores as they lose their ability to disguise acquisitiveness as membership. In Paris, almost all the great ones -- Galeries, BHV and Printemps -- are flourishing. Proof? You can buy a knockoff of a Versace dress faster than you can ink your lips. And I can also buy an apron, a T. Leclerc Banana face powder and a Babyliss ionic travel hair dryer. You can't miss.

 

I paid about $300. I can't see that Donatella minds because only rich women can buy a genuine Versace ball gown. I'm not rich and a residual Scottish morality means I wouldn't spend thousands of dollars on a dress even if I could. Her little match girls wearing Anti-Flirt are useful to her.The choice was between this and a lovely but horrible pink satin suit with ruching at the crotch and a neckline to the waist. Barbara Cartland would have happily been buried in it. "Am I too aged to wear the ribbony dress?" I asked the beautiful young saleswoman.

"No, because you're so skinny you frighten me, and I'm French," she said, or words to that effect. So I'm safe for now.-Heather Malick  

Photo: Donatella Versace

STARS, STYLE AND SIGNATURE.

 

WHO IS DONATELLA VERSACE?

Heloclub news stated that, If it had not been for the tragedy which took place on July 15, 1997, Donatella Versace might still be a bit player on the world's fashion stage. But the death of her brother Gianni, who was gunned down outside his Miami mansion, propelled the platinum blonde into the limelight. And in a few short years, she has upped the profile of the Milanese fashion house into the stratosphere, helping make Versace the label of choice for celebrities the world over.

 

Photo: Donatella leading one of her multi million Dollars shows.

Born in the Italian town of Reggio di Calabria in 1955, the daughter of a businessman and a dressmaker to the aristocracy, Donatella was the youngest of four children. Although Gianni was a decade her senior, the two were close, and by the age of 11 Donatella was accompanying her brother to discos and nightclubs. "Gianni was the wildest," she once told an interviewer, "Then he pushed me to be wild. Now I'm the wilder one; it's his fault." After attending Florence University in the Seventies, Donatella joined Gianni's fledgling fashion company. She started out handling his PR, but her involvement went much deeper and many credit her with being his muse, as her input was constant.  "If my sister wants to do something, okay," Gianni once told Vanity Fair. "If she doesn't like a sketch, I will cancel it." It was Donatella who came up with the idea of using well-known models for the catwalk shows, knowing that it would generate more press coverage for the Versace label, and in the Nineties she was given carte blanche to design a new line, Versus.  

With her unerring feel for the Zeitgeist, Donatella, who loved to frequent nightspots, was invaluable to Gianni, as she was able to tap into what the younger generation craved. Gianni's murder changed Donatella's life forever. Her first reaction was to take the family off to a private resort in the Caribbean where they could mourn the loss of the designer together. The Spring-Summer 98 collection was cancelled. Then Donatella had a blinding realisation: the show must go on. Gianni had told his sister – perhaps after he was diagnosed with ear cancer in the early Nineties – that if anything were to happen to him, she was to take over.

So she did. Her first collection, attended by a host of celebrities, was a triumph. But in typical Donatella fashion she credited its success to the seamstresses and models, and dedicated the show to, "Gianni's love of work and to our entire staff, whose incredible love and devotion was so precious to our brother and means so much to us." Heloclub News.

Donatella brought a new sensibility to the house of Versace. These days, the label is more in tune with the modern career woman, as the former muse has taken her inspiration from the lives of friends such as Madonna, Trudie Styler, Naomi Campbell and Courtney Love. And, while the hemlines might not have dropped along with the price tags, collections display more variety while retaining her brother's original ethos. With profits looking good and rave reviews in the fashion press, Donatella is riding high. Donatella with Prince Charles She has two children, Allegra, born in 1986, to whom Gianni bequeathed the lion's share of his multi-million dollar estate, and Daniel, five years his sister's junior. The fashion house head is married to Paul Beck, a former model, although the two generally live separate lives. With houses just about everywhere – not to mention the five-star Versace hotels that are springing up all over the globe – Donatella leads the peripatetic life only the truly rich can achieve. With diamonds that are "bigger than a very big grape, but smaller – just – than an apricot" – according to the Daily Telegraph, Donatella is excessive glamour personified. END