Versace has just announced that it's getting into the H&M game. The label's creative director, Donatella Versace, is designing a mens and womens collection to launch in 300 stores worldwide on November 19. A follow-up pre-spring collection will be available in January 2012, on a more limited basis.For their venture into mass retail, Versace dug into the archives and put together modern on-trend versions of iconic Versace looks. Versace's bright, haute-gaudy aesthetic is a great fit for the Swedish retailer, and based on teaser photos, the upcoming collection looks promising. H&M and Versace released some behind-the-scenes shots of model fittings (below), and at the Versace menswear show in Milan yesterday, Donatella took her applause on the runway while wearing one of the dresses from the Versace for H&M collection (right).
Karl Lagerfeld, Stella McCartney, Comme des Garçons, Roberto Cavalli, Jimmy Choo, and Lanvin have previously worked with H&M on exclusive designer collaborations. Versace will be the first label to include housewares, like pillows and blankets, as part of their collection.
After a long stint in rehab, John Galliano will stand trial in Paris tomorrow. The designer was dismissed from the house of Dior after a video leaked online, showing the intoxicated Galliano proclaiming his love for Hitler and advancing other anti-Semitic and racist slurs late at night at a Parisian cafe. The trial will likely last four or five hours, and will include testimony from the disgraced designer himself. In France, public expressions of anti-Semitism and racism are punishable by up to six months in prison and a fine of about thirty thousand dollars. I'm sure that Galliano might not enjoy spending time in the clinker, but the sentence seems to be manageable, even at its worst.
As the trial approaches, new details about Galliano and his rants are beginning to emerge, and they aren't going to do the designers any favors in court. According to the police dossier, Geraldine Bloch, the 35-year-old curator that was the alleged target of Galliano's venom, asserts that the designer "pulled at her hair, made fun of her 'revolting' eyebrows, and derided her 'low-end boots and low-end thighs.' And when the man with her, a 41-year-old receptionist named Philippe Virgitti, came to her defense, Galliano supposedly called him a 'f--king Asian bastard' and a dirty Asian s--t.'” Charming.