“Vintage Revamped: Revival Spirit,” by Sarah Mower, was originally published in the March 2006 issue of Vogue.
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Question of the season: Why should anyone want to dress in ultra-short, curvy dresses, gold medallions, and hot, hot color—fifteen years after Gianni Versace and Azzedine Alaïa first worked them. Fran Burns, a 26-year-old London fashion assistant, is part of the answer. "For girls like me, boho was the worst possible nightmare," she declares. "I want to feel tough and sexy!" Girls like Fran, who run around London's dressed-up clubs Kash Point, the Modern Times, and Family, are the real reason that references to Versace and Alaïa exploded on the spring runways. It's an accepted cycle: Fashion fiends source long-reviled style in thrift stores, get seen by designers—and in a flash, it's polished up on a runway somewhere.
In 1990, girls like Fran were ten years old or so. For them, the supermodel, va-va-voom age is a first hazy, golden memory: hardwired into fashion consciousness for life. No need to ask where they stood on the skintight dresses, Baroque-and-roll scarf prints, and heavy jewels that ran rife through Alexander McQueen, Balenciaga, Givenchy, and a crop of brand-new British designers' collectsions this season. The sight of them struck cold horror into those who witnessed them the first time round; but young women, students, and designers seized on the look with the sheer delight of seeing it all with new eyes and redoing it their way. "It's a revolt against the lady look," announces Jamie Surman, senior fashion editor of i-D magazine. "After such a long time of prim-and-proper, a hunger grew for something more glamorous."
But how exactly is this thing reshaping itself, since no fashion ever repeats itself in the same way? To find out, we sourced three vintage dresses, two Versaces and an Alaïa, and set designers a task: How would they restyle these originals for a young woman now? We called Marc Jacobs, Donatella Versace, and Azzedine Alaïa for their views. And, since London seems to be the hot spot of European body-consciousness, we took the dresses to two of the city's young designers, Ann-Sofie Back (who did short, tight dresses for spring) and Christopher Kane, who is about to graduate from Central Saint Martins with a collectsion based on the shapely age. Thus, an anatomy of the curvy, leggy, now-style began to emerge (although we'll have to do without the thoughts of Mr. Alaïa, who chooses to remain silent).
Marc Jacobs reasoned out how the Vuitton collectsion evolved. "We had a big event—the reopening of the Paris flagship store—around the show, so the collectsion had to be sexy, hot, and exciting," he remembered. "We looked at Versace, Ferré, Krizia, an area that's been absent recently. We already had stilettos with the lots of little buckles, and bags with medallions, which were definitely a tribute to Versace." The bags didn't make it into production, but for Jacobs the sentiment remains the same. "Gianni is much more appreciated now. Given time, you look back and see how important he was."
Jacobs looked over our classic Alaïa jersey bodydress and concluded, "I'd never touch an Azzedine. His pieces never look dated, even 20 years on. I'd love to see a girl in it with flat shoes—not a pair of bitchin' shoes. I'd do the same thing with the Eiffel Tower Versace dress. It's got its charm, but what would make it surprising would be a girl wearing it with a casual attitude, with flats. But," he cautioned, with a large layering of 2006-style irony, "I'd hate to see it on the right girl. It would have to be on the wrong girl. But, y'know, mum the right wrong girl."
Ann-Sofie Back walked around the long Versace gown with its outrageous 3-D chain-mail flying shoulder detail and pronounced, "It should be short. I'd cut it up to where the side slit ends and put it with sheer black tights and chain-mail shoes." The sparkly Eiffel Tower dress, she said, sighing, has "too many colors. I'd dress it down with something it doesn't work with, like a beige trench coat." The Alaïa, though, made her eyes light up. "This is nice! It's almost like jodhpur fabric. I'd put it with a wide belt that isn't really right, something matte, brown, distressed. White shirt underneath. Red lipstick. Hair scraped back."
Christopher Kane was finishing his graduation collectsion of short, frilled lace dresses, inspired by Melanie Griffith in Working Girl. He put the long Versace gown on a dress form in the college studio and exhaled, "It's from his last collectsion, 1997; I've just been researching it!" He thought a bit. "It should be mid-thigh. I'd knot it at the side and ruche it up, then put it with a cone heel and a platform. Hair in a plain ponytail with a leather headband." He liked the Eiffel dress, too. "You'd want a platform Prada ankle boot and royal-blue opaque tights. It would be good with a big-shouldered tailored jacket or a structured waistcoat; something masculine." He took the Alaïa and reverently inspected the seams. "Bare legs would look just normal; I'd use peachy-sable tights, which would peep through the stitching. And an Aran cardigan cropped and riding up to show the scoop back."
Kane was correct about the 1997 gown, as Donatella Versace confirmed. When we arrived at the palatial Versace apartments in Milan, she had her take on the trend pinned down—on two boards of photographs from the spring collectsions of Vuitton, McQueen, Balenciaga, and Marios Schwab (who is on the London radar as another nineties revivalist), alongside references from the Versace archives. There were Vuitton's medallion-laden bags next to the Versace Medusa-head bags of'92; the hot-pink wet look of '95 and the LV re-edition. McQueen's leather-strapped dresses were placed against Gianni's famous bondage collectsion of'92. Balenciaga's black-and-white scarf prints and gold-shield belts were pinned beside Versace's "Black fashion" collectsion of '88. Marios Schwab's curvy white bra-dress was partnered with a picture of Madonna in something very similar from '95. In some cases, the borrowings that Donatella had skewered were almost photo-fit duplicates.
But she was smiling. "I'm very flattered. I respect Marc Jacobs, McQueen, and Balenciaga. And this Marios Schwab, he's very young—and that's flattering, too!" she said, laughing. "They think it was a moment in fashion—and it was. The sensuality and sexuality were really strong. At that time, Gianni was the only one talking about glamour, and saying it loud." But if Donatella takes the trend as a compliment to her brother, she's also amused to find herself caught in a generational trap by it. "It's really funny: If I did something like this, I'd be criticized. For them it's OK, but not for me!" Her nineteen-year-old daughter, Allegra, though, is playing it her own way. "She wears vintage clothes from Gianni but with different hair and makeup, shoes, or boots." Donatella took our test and declared, "I agree with the kids! The black one should be very short and sexy. The hair should be down and messy. I'd shorten the other one right up to the bottom of the Tour Eiffel, put it with a mini-trench coat in bronze, blue opaque stockings, and a bronze sandal."
If it's ironic that she is one person who is hesitant about repeating her late, great brother's work, Donatella Versace certainly deserves the last word on the reason its power is roaring back. "I think fashion has to be joyful again," she said. "Not so serious, so contorted and intellectual. We need a new glamour." Which, as it happens, is exactly what those young London glamazons, striding out in their extreme platforms, short dresses, and scarlet lipstick, are searching for, in every market and obscure corner of eBay, at this very moment.
