Dario Vitale unveiled his debut collection for the house of Versace on Friday night, and it turned to be a love letter to Gianni Versace and the founder’s earliest ideas.

Presented among oil paintings, ancient statues and medieval furniture inside the beautiful but rarely visited Pinacoteca Ambrosiana in central Milan, like the museum the collection came across as an example of “pop historicism,” to use Vitali’s words.
 
A museum Vitale made his own, scattering vintage Versace clothes throughout the space, in between chairs, couches, a well-used dog basket and a huge bed – with his own sheets – taking pride of place in one grand gallery.

The house had indicated beforehand to editors that the event would be more like a presentation, but in the end, it was a fully-fledged runway display.

The show also marked the first since Prada had acquired control the house Versace this spring for $1.25 billion. But there was no sign of Vitale’s ex-boss 76-year-old Miuccia Prada at the show. Vitale had previously been Miuccia’s right-hand man at Miu Miu, helping to make that label into the hottest in contemporary fashion. Another lady missing from the debut was 70-year-old Donatella Versace, who helmed the house for three decades, after her brother’s tragic death in 1987.  
 
And one could not help noticing, quite dramatically, that the mood and the cast – a mix of professional models and street casting – looked two decades younger than recent Versace shows. And the models looked like they suddenly were having a busy sex life, showing plenty of skin, and marching with great swagger. Several sexy dresses seemed to almost fall apart at the back, revealing lots of flesh, and underwear. 
 
“My concept of sex in this context is not the tactile act it’s more the idea or its smell. It’s the souvenir the day after,” smiled 42-year-old Vitale.

His silhouette was very much his own: mega high-waisted pants; and short-but-wide jackets cut with power shoulders or exaggerated curves. He showed some great new leather jackets: rock dandy looks for the men, steamy seductress for the women, often cut with vertical strips to add punch.
 
Like the furniture Dario installed in the museum, the clothes harked back to ’70s and Gianni’s happy days in ’80s Miami. With bright South Beach colors like lime green, pomegranate or ultraviolet. Looser, forgiving forms in tailoring; and multiple very short shorts for men, recalling the body beautiful bluster of early Versace. 
 
“My mother was a faithful client of Versace, so I knew Gianni’s work since I was a baby. I wanted to search for the feeling of the company, going behind the clothes to find another layer,” smiled the diminutive Vitale, who sports a matinee idol moustache, and dressed in a beige leather and oversized black pants.
 
“I think Versace belongs to everyone in popular culture,” continued Vitale, who was born in Naples, before moving to study at Instituto Marangoni in Milan, and working for Dsquared2 and Bottega Veneta, before joining Miu Miu in 2010.

Founder Gianni was also legendary for his use of bold prints, frequently mining the mythology of Magna Graecia from his native Calabria. But there was little of that in Vitale’s prints. Even if there were several stone Medusa heads – Versace’s most famous symbol – in the museum, one found none of them in Dario’s designs. In fact, Vitale’s prints featuring women’s heads were all rather ambiguous, was that Marilyn Monroe, or Bianca Jagger in shorts skirts or jeans? On second thoughts, not.
 
Though pre-show, Vitale had sent guests a charming letter quoting Keats, one of whose most famous poems is “Ode to a Grecian Vase”.
 
All told, this was an impressive Versace debut by Vitale, clearly designed with plenty of ideas, chutzpah and tailoring talent. Perhaps not a home run, but a winning display. 
 
Post-show, he maintained the house’s tradition of being generous hosts, with a fete inside famed Milanese restaurant Peck. Though there was a curious subdued air about the soirée. Perhaps due to the absence of any member of the Bertelli clan that owns Prada, or its CEO Andrea Guerra, one heard several people musing that Vitale’s future Versace might be a short one.
 
Then again, those of us who have visited Keats grave in Rome will recall his epitaph. “Here lies one whose name was writ on water,” the poet’s final comment on the fleeting nature of life, and fame.