A commentary on Versace Resort SS2023

The palpable youthfulness of the Versace Resort 2023 collection is aiming directly at a Britney Spears-type client – an unabashed feminine rock and roll presence, energy directed to expressing power and freedom, whilst petrifying her foes. She’s fun, spontaneous, and a bit bad. Spears as the newest Versace brand ambassador would be a comeback power move – a warning and a taunting to the phalanx of lawyers, doctors and business managers (familial or not) involved her conservatorship, ended November 2021. The Versace website’s copy for its Resort 2023 collection reads “DARK-DIVA ENERGY;” for a pop star whose soundscapes travel into sweat-soaked, venomous club territory (a trifecta: Blackout, In The Zone, Glory), plus an already-existing business relationship with Donatella Versace herself, the fashion house is a spot-on creative collaboration.

The collection is thoroughly 2002 meets 2022, with mini-purses, chunky necklaces and monogrammed chokers, and a dragonfruit pink baseball cup running the gamut of approachable and sellable accessories. Punches of millennial and millennium pink foreshadow Paris Hilton, and fellow Hollywood blonde bombshell, shutting down the runway for Versace Spring 2023. The rest of Resort 2023 screams 2000’s pop star styling: tiered blouses and dresses paired with wide-leg pinstripe trousers , a healthy shot of acidic limes and vibrant carnations against dark neutrals, generous helpings of chiffon every which way – it is as if the wardrobe from “Me Against The Music” and both “Overprotected” videos synthesized specifically for her rebellious, post-conservatorship wardrobe. The very low-cut floral dresses styled with Versace tees seem already up Spears’ alley, and easily emulated for those within the Versace tax bracket. The denim work on the ashtray grey jacket and jeans evoke a mid-2000’s attitude gyal – the look featuring a velour tank top, adorned with a golden Versace Medusa logo, paired with grey wide-leg beaded denim is the strongest and most relatable of the bunch. I can imagine it now, a simply shot but intricately choreographed performance video (a la K-Pop’s dance rehearsal MV’s), with Spears in streetwear Versace and intricate choreography. Now that’s haute.

Spears has loved and donned Versace on a few occasions before: a dazzling multicoloured bodycon gown front row at Versace during the 2002 Milan Fashion Week, a green sequinned chiffon number in an ’01 performance with Michael Jackson at his 30th anniversary celebration show in New York, an elegant atelier wedding dress for for her star-studded nuptials to longtime beau Sam Asghari in June 2022. If brand partnership is on the horizon, the question becomes, is Spears willing to becoming a Versace fashion avatar in the celebrity and entertainment channels? She already considers the fickle media and its paparazzi as grubs and maggots of this exorbitant ecosystem (“Kill The Lights”, “Piece Of Me”, “Do Somethin’”). It is apt Spears finds sartorial solace in Versace’s strong imagery, notably in Medusa’s mythology. Long an allegory for female rage, Gianni Versace himself chose the head of Medusa because she represents both astonishing beauty, and petrifying fear. After thirteen years in a fiscal and legal labyrinth, it is up to Britney Spears if she wants to use her mythical energy for vanquishing. May the ensuing lamentations be the most beautiful of all.