The Versace fall/winter 2023 fashion show included Naomi Campbell, Kendall Jenner, Iman Hammad, Gigi and Bella Hadid, and others walking the runway. But, the celebrity appeal wasn’t limited to the stage.
The A-list attended Donatella Versace’s first fashion show in Los Angeles in 20 years on Thursday, which was presented in advance of Sunday’s Academy Awards.
At the Versace fall/winter collection launch party, attendees included Anne Hathaway, Cher (alongside music executive Alexander Edwards), Gabrielle Union, Paris, Nicky, and Kathy Hilton, Ariana Debose, Diplo, Lily James, Allison Williams, Dua Lipa, Lil Nas X, Miley Cyrus, Demi Moore, Channing Tatum, Pamela Anderson, Sabrina Elba, Ke Huy Quan, and Danielle Deadwyler.
Models made their way up a vertical runway to a rooftop promenade perched above the Pacific Design Center in Los Angeles. Due to exceptionally bad weather in Los Angeles, the event had to be postponed and moved up a day, although it was nonetheless heavily attended.
The vocal entrance to Prince’s 1984 smash song “Let’s Go Crazy” was sampled and used as a punctuation throughout the performance. During the show’s conclusion, the entire song was performed.
“He didn’t just influence my work, he epitomized what Versace stands for,” Versace told Vogue in 2018. She paid tribute to her longtime friend in her 2016 collection, the first she’d done after Prince’s death in April of that year.
“Creative, fierce, daring, extraordinary…He created an aura of uniqueness around himself that very few artists in history have been able to do. He was not afraid to show who he truly was, and that’s a lesson also my brother Gianni taught me.”
Donatella took over the luxury fashion brand after her brother’s murder in 1997. Now the brand is worth $1 billion, surpassing that mark in sales in 2022.
In recent years and as reflected in the show, Versace has returned to a more unapologetically glamorous profile. The spring-fall 2023 show five months ago included flowing dresses and shirts and suits in bold colors, including vivid purples, maybe also inspired by Prince.
