Atelier Versace Couture Fall 2015 Collection

There are different ways to look at couture. One maintains that to survive, couture must embrace modernity inclusive of a realistic approach to day clothes. Au contraire, says Donatella Versace. She maintains that haute modernity means accepting the triumph of ready-to-wear by day, and that the future of couture her couture, anyway  is at night.

In recent seasons, Versace has sculpted more than her signature corsetry; she has shaped with perfect clarity this unapologetic approach to couture that puts hyper-sculpted, hand-worked jackets over similarly assembled minis and tight pants in the rearview mirror.

Once again on Sunday night Versace drove home the point, focusing on a woman with a vibrant nightlife, preferably inclusive of major red-carpet moments. She did so with greater grace and, dare one say, discretion, than spring’s often harsh, cutout curves fest. The runway a low Lucite platform encasing thousands of orchids arranged in geometric color clusters separated by light rods – suggested a return to pretty. “I call the collection tough, but ethereal at the same time,” Versace said backstage after the show. “I wanted to explore the softer side of the Versace woman.”

And so she did, in a woodland creature-cum-Stevie Nicks reverie in which intricate corsetry anchored tiered, raw-edged, asymmetric diaphanous flou. She went short occasionally, and though the dresses charmed, she should have left the too-literal, slick mile-high platform boots where they belonged – in the Seventies.

But this collection was really about evening dressing, and within her finely honed message, Versace showed considerable diversity, from fluid columns to a pair of feathered-out ballgowns. Her fabrics were lovely – countless takes on texture and luminosity, sometimes in the same look. For example, one yellow embroidered net gown featured racy appliqués on one side and a half of a frilled frock coat on the other.

More often, Versace created interest with intricacies of drape and cut, or by securing the open back of a berry silk gown with a leafy vine. She worked mostly in moody, dusty pastels punctuated with shots of color, and left the woods temporarily for a group of dangerous sea creatures in webby black. Whichever way she went, her Versace vixens will be camera-ready from every angle.