Of all the fashion houses showing in Milan this autumn/winter 2025 season, Versace is the most discussed across dinner tables, over coffee cups and in those idling moments before late-running fashion shows begin. That’s because Versace has reportedly been put up for sale by its current owner Capri Holdings and bidding seems fierce.
On Monday, Renzo Rosso of Italian luxury conglomerate Only The Brave — owner of brands including Diesel, Jil Sander and Maison Margiela — stated a potential interest in acquiring the label. Backstage, after her own fashion show on Thursday, Miuccia Prada was asked to comment on speculation reported in Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore in early February that the Prada Group was not only interested, but had been given an exclusive four-week access to Versace’s financial data ahead of other potential buyers. “[Versace] is on everybody’s table”, she said. You could also see other companies taking an interest — how about Mayhoola, the Qatari investment entity that already controls Valentino and Balmain? Versace would fit right into their stable. And in January, WWD reported that Marco Bizzarri, former Gucci president and chief executive, is raising funds to be able to bid.
All of which means intrigue and anticipation swirled around the house’s latest efforts — a strong show would justify pricetags not just for expensive clothes, but for the label as a whole. And that’s exactly what Donatella Versace delivered, in a collection, she stated, filled with Versace superheroes. “Our house codes are recognised all over the world and make us so strong,” she said in a statement released before the show. In essence, she pinned down exactly why so many may wish to buy Versace. The brand is known for bling — swirling baroque prints, gilt buckles, studs, clashes of animal print, bright colours and chainmail evening dresses. It has dressed Madonna and Elton John and Jennifer Lopez, memorably, in a barely there dress of jungle-print silk chiffon that proved so potent a visual that Google invented its image search facility in response to frenzied enquiries for photographs of it back in 2000. Versace has a distinct bunch of aesthetic signifiers other designers would kill for.
Sometimes, Versace seems a little bit afraid of that, of itself — it can go shy and retiring, especially in moments when fashion seems to be twisting towards the winds of minimalism. It wasn’t the case on Friday night, where all the above was present and correct, in a fabulous, theatrical show in the label’s grand tradition. “If you try to please too many people, too many managers, creativity is gone,” Versace said, in conversation before an audience with American Vogue’s global editorial director Anna Wintour held at Milan’s Triennale on Thursday evening. It garnered a round of applause.
Her show did too, whoops and cheers for Versace doing Versace. Forget quiet luxury, Versace is about unapologetic luxury — but with a witty nod. Speaking of its status as a fashion house, the show opened with Versace homewares transformed into clothes — quilted bedspreads twisted into a cocoon coat or corseted evening dresses, their ornate prints picked up and running throughout the show, outside garments and as striking linings to tramline-straight coats. Archive references were overt — those prints were classics drawn from the past, ripe to be mined for profit once again, while a slithery floor-length gown in silver chainmail and crystal looked perfect for the Academy Awards red carpet. For her own bow, meanwhile, Donatella Versace wore a vintage jacket from 1992, taken from one of the most memorable collections designed by her brother, the label’s founder Gianni Versace, who died in 1997. The collection is known as “Miss S&M” — it was strong, uncompromising and utterly Versace. Just like this one.
Donatella Versace obviously has an innate knowledge of the Versace brand — she been at the helm of Versace since 1997. But it doesn’t necessarily take decades to build that up. Look at the brilliant job Matteo Tamburini’s doing at Tod’s — he only became creative director of the label in December 2023, but he’s completely nailed what the brand is, was and should be. It should have lots of leather, it should look innately Italian and it should be very expensive. That was all there, in a collection quietly inspired by modern Italian art — Alberto Burri, Carla Accardi, Lucio Fontana — in its approach to colour and texture.
“I don’t think Tod’s speaks for eveningwear and flou,” Tamburini said at a preview. True — a leather evening dress isn’t the most appealing, unlike his achingly beautiful trenches, swirling double-cashmere coats with details framed in leather, and some of the best shearlings in a season packed with them. At the nape of the neck of his coats, and on the back-pocket of his trousers, Tamburini has started sewing three stitches to form a “T”, a detail drawn from Tod’s bags. It’s a silent signature that could, paradoxically, resonate as powerfully as Versace’s Medusa head for this stealth luxury Italian brand. Again, all about knowing your customer.
Alexander Fury is the FT’s men’s fashion critic
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