Tonight:
5°c
IT WAS the dress that launched a whole career and summed up the wilder excesses of the Nineties. So you can hardly blame Donatella Versace for wanting to revisit it.
The safety pin dress worn so famously by a then-unknown Elizabeth Hurley in 1994 seemed to be the main inspiration for Versace's latest autumn/winter collection, proving that there is no idea quite so lucrative as a tried and tested one. Especially during a recession.
But while the safety pins on Hurley's gown were big and gold, these latest ones were small and silver - a trifling point, perhaps, but not to the canny fashion observer for whom the devil is always in the detail. They snaked up the sides of a black wet-look jersey dress, or acted as a point of interest on the shoulder of a dark grey fishtail evening gown.
Pins also featured on Versace's latest bag, the Rave. Other designers name their handbags after models: that Donatella names hers in honour of a hedonistic dance scene tells you all you need to know about the house of Versace. Spiritually and aesthetically, the flaxen-haired Donatella is still on a podium somewhere in St Tropez. This lends a youthful exuberance to her collections that is steadfast, no matter which other trends are being peddled in Milan. If you want clothes to go clubbing in - skinny jeans, scoop-backed tops and tiny tube dresses - Versace is your woman.
For autumn, she experimented with textures, superimposing a metallic finish on to nappa leather pencil skirts and slim-fit trousers, so that the effect looked three-dimensional. Colours came from the sea - turquoise, cobalt and kingfisher blue. Some dresses, with their fishtail skirts of oversized paillettes, evoked a mermaid's tail, an effect further enhanced by the models' slicked-back hair that made them look recently risen from the sea.
The back was a point of interest, with most dresses cut low into a deep V that would render them hopeless for anyone above a B cup. Although whether the Versace customer even owns anything as dreary as a bra is debatable. In fluid satin jersey, in colours from bright fuchsia to oil-slick black, these dresses ruled the catwalk, their simplicity set off by metal belts stamped with the Versace logo.
While the eveningwear might be a little too daring for your average celebrity - reality TV stars excepted - it was expertly constructed. Flashes of well-oiled back, thigh and breastbone peeked out of a turquoise sequin sheath dress, while safety pins held together the seams of a long blue gown.
It was all very Versace, very Nineties, yet very now.
