Versace Spring 2016 RTW Collection

There will come a time in your life when you will ask yourself a series of questions: “‘Am I happy with the way my life is going?’…Do I have a life?’”

Donatella Versace’s soundtrack featured Violet and Friends’ cover of “Transitions” by Underground Resistance, recorded in celebration of International Women’s Day. Versace no doubt saw it as a call to action for women to get up, get out and transition from whatever’s keeping us down toward “the direction of your dreams.”

Not gonna lie. Little more than halfway through four weeks of 14-hour days given over to complete immersion in clothes at the expense of all else life might otherwise offer, some women found it a bit of a downer.

But a wonderful thing about watching a Versace collection: You can’t stay in your funk for long. A contagious optimist, Versace believes in the power of clothes to lift the spirits, up the confidence, lengthen the leg and give off some serious heat, all in the same precision-cut jacket. Mostly, she believes in the power of women. Her spring is an urban jungle where raw sex appeal and power chic intermingle and ultimately triumph, its population a society of models who know how to work an undone mane and a tight skirt – not to mention a grown-up jacket.

Accenting the “urban,” Versace focused on tailoring with long, sculpted military jackets in Army green and khaki over barely-there shorts; she showed looser variants in shiny canvas with raw edges for a hint of primal. Bright camouflage worked a more relaxed side of the military subtext. All were beautifully made and radiated authority.

Yet, what’s a jungle without animalia? Versace has long loved stripes and spots of the wild feline variety. But in a fashion strata where mundane will no longer do, she reinvented them in mixed jacquard knits, leather intarsias and intricately wrought, colorful collages designed to show off fabric development and skin in equal measure. Sexy? This was Versace. But Versace in complete control, so that even a “me Tarzan, you Jane” number on Gigi Hadid projected power more than prurience. Donatella at her best. Who wouldn’t be happy with that?

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