Salone del Mobile: Versace Wave

Gianni Versace’s shapes and volumes were often borrowed from tradition as the designer found inspiration delving deep into the past and subverting it. The late designer also delighted in the excessive ornamentation of Rococo, looking at history through the distorted lenses of his imagination and mixing sensuality with redundant opulence. Among the trademark symbols of the house there is the Baroque swirl, a graphic element that reappered also in the Autumn/Winter 2011-12 collection, in a snaky vine-like tendrils forming whiplash curls around body-con wool crepe shifts.

When I created it, I wanted to mix fashion and design so that people could experience the true Versace lifestyle. I love it because it’s so innovative, glamorous and fashionable! It conveys the real essence of Versace

The same Baroque motif inspired the new key piece of the current Versace Home collection, a dormeuse very aptly entitled “Wave”, derived from the ancient Roman triclinium, but filtered through Baroque and reinterpreted in a modern key. Available in bold pop shades such as acid green or electric blue velvet, the Wave - presented this week during Milan’s Salone del Mobile - is a sort of three-dimensional blown up curlicue that connects fashion and interior design. “This is a great hint of what the new Versace Home Collection will be,” Donatella Versace, speaking about the Wave, told Dazed Digital. “When I created it, I wanted to mix fashion and design so that people could experience the true Versace lifestyle. I love it because it’s so innovative, glamorous and fashionable! It conveys the real essence of Versace.”