H&M announces Versace collection

Donatella Versace will create a collection alive with her Italian fashion house’s design signatures, including party dresses in studded leather and opulent prints. Besides womenswear, the collection will include ranges for men and a limited number of home decor pieces.

In stores from 17th November, the collaboration will be followed by a pre-spring collection in January 2012.

‘I am thrilled to be collaborating with H&M and to have the opportunity of reaching their wide audience,’ Donatella Versace said in a statement. ‘The collection will be quintessential Versace, perfect for H&M and Versace fans everywhere.’

The collection marks an about-face for the platinum-tressed designer. In 2008, Donatella said that she had declined offers to create a lower-cost line because it didn’t mesh with the Versace ethos. ‘I respect everyone who does it. But the reason I didn’t do it is because I work very hard to put the Versace line in the luxury section. I think to put the Versace line in H&M would confuse the brand,’ New York Magazine reported Versace as saying at a New York Times talk.

Apparently, she reconsidered—encouraged, perhaps, by the Swedish company’s successful collaborations with Jimmy Choo and Lanvin.

Versace and H&M were careful to position the collection not as a lower-cost line, but as one that would revive iconic pieces from the Versace archive.

‘For me, this is an opportunity to show to a very, very big aud