DONATELLA'S AMERICAN DREAM

Donatella Versace took the brand that invented red carpet dressing to Hollywood. Here, she tells Hattie Brett about her LA adventure - and what fame really means

- Hattie Brett

Liz Hurley’s safety-pin dress. J-Lo’s jungle-print Grammys dress. Katy Perry wearing angel wings so wide she had to be taken to the Met Gala standing up in the back of a van… Versace dresses haven’t just launched careers and broken the internet; they’ve been responsible for creating the multimillion-dollar phenomenon that is today’s red carpet dressing. So it makes sense that 32 years since a Versace dress first hit the Oscars – red, plunging and worn by Cindy Crawford in her public debut with Richard Gere – Donatella Versace decided to bring the brand into the heart of Hollywood. Days before the Academy Awards, the designer unveiled her A/W ’23 collection in front of an audience of Hollywood’s finest. Music’s OG influencers Cher and Elton sat alongside the new wave Miley Cyrus and Lil Nas X in an all-gold show venue constructed on the rooftop of the Pacific Design Center. Demi Moore and Rummer Willis made it a mother-daughter night out, the latter dressing her burgeoning baby bump in a bodycon LBD (Versace, naturally). And actors Anne Hathaway, Lily James and Simone Ashley were accompanied by their super-stylists, no doubt trading notes about which of the bustleand-bow embellished dresses on the catwalk they’d be borrowing for their next event. Whoever had their eye on the sheer panelled gown Gigi wore in the finale would have been disappointed. Lady Gaga nabbed that one; wearing it less than 72 hours after the show on the Oscars’ champagne carpet.