Interview
Fashion icon Donatella Versace and renowned designers Ludovica and Roberto Palombas on Versace Home’s new era
The unapologetically extravagant Versace Homes universe has always translated the glamorous codes of its fashion house into everything one might need for the home. As the first fashion brand to look beyond what we wore to how we lived, the journey began with a home textiles collection comprising of sheets, duvets, pillows, and cushions in 1992. A range of dinner sets swiftly followed, resulting into a long-term collaboration with German chinaware maker, Rosenthal. The brand then went on to create everything from furniture to lighting and wallpaper, culminating in Palazzo Versace. Touted as the world’s first fashion hotel, Palazzo Versace debuted on Australia’s Gold Coast and then expanded to Dubai.
Now almost homing in to its 30th year, Versace Home enters a new era of partnership with Lifestyle Design,
whose portfolio includes prestige Italian brands like Cappellini, Cassina, Ceccotti and Poltrona Frau. This collaboration kicked off to a promising start with a new collection designed by renowned architects and designers, Ludovica and Roberto Palomba (LRP), following the input of the brand’s most stalwart guardian, Donatella Versace (DV).
The husband and wife team whose portfolio reads like a who’s who of furniture design are particularly suited for this task as their hallmark stems from the capacity to combine a contemporary vision with an extensive knowledge of the roots of design. This approach has garnered them over 70 awards and international recognitions, including the famed Compasso d’oro.
What inspired this new collection? DV: In everything I do, whether it’s a dress, a new print or, as in this case, a piece of furniture, there are so many elements that come into play. Inspiration can come from many things, some of them even obvious, but you need to have the eye to see beyond the surface, to glimpse that special something that is behind everything we surround ourselves with. It could be a book I am reading, or a piece from the archive or a song. It doesn’t make a difference: what’s important is that it makes me think.
Today, I look a lot at social media to understand what people want. I think it is a powerful tool to remain in touch with what is happening in the society, but you need to be careful on how you use it because there’s also a lot of pretense in what we see: at the end of the day, we are projecting an image that we want other people to believe in and it’s not always real. LRP: Versace means being confident
“Glamour is always significant. This is the Versace Home approach”
in your own skin, being bold and not afraid to dare. We translated these feelings into pieces of furniture that seem to open like a little black dress with the use of zips, or surprise you through unexpected combination of materials. Links with the brand’s unconstrained beauty can be found in every detail, from the way we use the Medusa to the graphic Greca and vivid Trésor de la Mer – they become decorations on lampshades or are featured on large screens adorning the headboards of beds, enriching table legs, depicted on screen-printed accessories or as three-dimensional motifs on rugs.
How does the highly recognisable Versace aesthetic translate into this new collection?
DV: Glamour is always significant, functional furniture that does not forget style. This is the Versace Home approach. Furthermore creativity, craftsmanship and quality have always been concepts linked to my brand. We are second to none. Made in Italy is not simply a label, but a set of values and a guarantee of quality that no one in the world can boast. For Versace, having a home line means being able to offer anyone who wants it the chance to enter in a world where the various elements that make it up speak and echo. We were one of the first brands to launch a home line and I’m glad we can still talk about it today.
LRP: By understanding what
Versace means today, and to do so we needed to understand how it got to today. Donatella could have taken million different roads, she told a story to a new generation, and they listened to her. The interesting part of this project, that started long before the design process, was entering inside the world of Versace.
There are very few brands in the world – whether we are talking about fashion or design – with such a strong and unmistakable identity. Going through the books, the archive to understand what Versace means today, how Donatella was able to bring the heritage of the brand into the present and to create the basis for the future, was such an inspiration.
How do you keep a heritage brand relevant and desirable in these fastchanging times?
DV: Versace has a history that only a few other fashion houses can boast about. What I’ve tried to do over the years is innovate the brand and take it into the future. This meant not taking the brand as it was, dusting it off and proposing it again, but questioning it, reworking it, rereading it through the eyes of today’s consumers.
LVP: Normally, we can say there are many constraints working with design companies as they
are much more formal during the creation of new projects. On the other side working with a fashion brand was like going to the streets to make a revolution.
From Poltrona Frau to Driade, you’ve work with many of Italy’s most august furniture design companies – what was it like working on a home collection for a fashion brand?
LRP: The only difference was that we had one of the greatest fashion icons next to us. We designed this collection as a tribute to the woman who most embodies fashion creativity, that is Donatella Versace, receiving her input, her inspiration and her incredible energy and her creative vision of the brand.
What was it like working with Donatella Versace and how did you incorporate her input into the collection?
LRP: Working with Donatella felt like when a tornado meets a volcano, if you know what we mean. So much creative energy! For us it was really a unique experience. Versace was one of the first fashion brands to have created a home collection and to be able to work with Donatella today, to hear her talking about her vision for the brand for the future and how that could be translated into the design world has been an incredible challenge.
When you have so much history, so many iconic codes and, yet, so much newness, one can really understand how the world of design is evolving and transforming by merging with the fashion world. We come from a world of pure interior and product design and experiencing first-hand the energy and the incredible flow of ideas that Donatella pours on you during a conversation, was sensational. All was translated into a completely revised collection of furniture that are not only respectful of the codes of the brand but are the first step towards the future of Versace Home.
What can we look forward to in future Versace Home collections?
DV & LRP: More and more art and design, more and more the art of design.