THE ICON PRESS PRINT
If ever there was the right occasion for wearing a Versace baroque print ball dress, the Fashion Awards is a candidate. Especially when you’ve just won The Fashion Icon category. Donatella wasn’t the only one on Monday night in that famous 1991 baroque print (now reissued). FKA Twigs and Rita Ora joined her – the latter to perform on stage in an Albert Hall shaking rendition of George Michael’s Freedom, the soundtrack to the autumn/winter 1991 show that featured Cindy, Christy, Naomi and Tatiana Patitz linking arms down the catwalk as they lip-synched the words. Cheesy? Maybe you had to be there. It was the fashion moment of 1991, just as Donatella’s tribute to her late brother back in September – featuring the original supermodels, the original clothes, now repurposed for 2017, and the original lyrics
– was one of the fashion moments of 2017. In a way, it was Gianni’s night – a reminder of how imaginative and fearless a designer he was. Lady Gaga evidently agrees. When many of those Versace early pieces were auctioned on farfetch.com this September, she snapped up 50 pieces.