Versus autumn/winter 2010/11 collection

By Hilary Alexander, Fashion Director at Milan Fashion Week Published: 11:02AM GMT 01 March 2010

Photo: AP/ EPA

In 1991, Peter Lindberg shot an iconic cover for American Vogue. It featured all the supermodels of the day; Lindy, Cristy, Cindy, Naomi, Tatjana between them. And they were all wearing black tanned hide biker jackets and small pleated skirts, by Versace.

Something of that edgy, urban, girlie glamour, churned with the sniff of danger, was at the heart of the pick up the immature British designer, Christopher Kane, delivered for Versus, the now-revived younger line at the residence of Versace.

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There was no leather; what looked similar to it was, in fact, a sold hard, roughly industrial strength, duchesse satin, that Kane used to grasp the stiff, pleated, small tutu-skirts, in neon-orange and splendid bluish and one in black - with relating multi-strapped bondage-bodices and bra-tops, with fine cloth gladiator boots and stiletto sandals in the same colours.

This, his second pick up for the funkier sister of Versace, additionally featured a new range of T-shirts, and handbags, printed, in colour, with a small of the iconic debate photographs shot by Bruce Weber, in the heady days when Versus was initial launched in 1995.

Kane, 26, insisted conjunction the book, nor the West End muscial, Billy Elliot, had sparked his thinking, rather, he said, it was "the counterbalance of ballet with fetish, something a bit subversive."

Straps and buckles traced a pointy line opposite bodices and skirts; alternative straps one after another opposite the breasts to encase the top arms.

The show was staged as a simple, but in effect array of presentations, opposite a plain, winding wall, in the "Teatro Versace".

It was not all subjugation and ballet. There were sleeveless vests, in purple velvet, ragged with prolonged black gloves; a purple velvet "tutu" dress, double-buckled down the sides of the torso; a padded, biker coupler and pleated kilt, that was an evident flashback to that Vogue cover; a pretty, small black angora cardigan and skirt; and even a span of prosaic boots.

"Christopher has regularly been a fan of Versace and Versus. He knows the brands and he has a fresh, cool proceed that works," pronounced Donatella Versace, who accompanied Kane as he took his bow, wearing one of the Bruce Weber/Versus T-shirts.

Kanes initial pick up for Versus, for this spring/summer, will shortly be on sale in Browns and Harvey Nichols in London.