Milan fashion weekDrake's big up to Donatella closed the Versace show tonight, but it was Nine Inch Nails who soundtracked the rest of the presentation, and it was the sullen mean girls of hard rock, not hip-hop, who shaped the collection. Maybe that's why the whole thing worked so well. The Reznor situation was close to Donatella's heart. Beforehand, she was as excited as we've ever seen her as she waved around the Versace World Tour 2014 T-shirts that were standouts in the show (she wore one for her walkout). The gigs listed on the back of the tee ran the usual gamut—New York, London, Paris, etc.—but Jupiter and Venus were also named. Interplanetary Donatella? That sounds like a lost masterpiece from space-rock gods Hawkwind.

The metal details came hard and heavy in the collection: studs on denim, mesh bandannas, chains round necks or harnessing torsos, hook-and-eye closings. Definitive: Lindsey Wixson in a shag cut, sheer blouse, black bandeau, denim pencil skirt hook-and-eyed down the front like it was stapled shut, and towering platform sandals bound to her feet with elastic bands. But if the clothes looked tough, they had a surprising softness (there was a lot of linen in the denim), or at least a richness. The hard, hip-slung, sheeny circle skirts that opened the show were actually raffia.

To be perfectly frank, those opening looks—the collection's manifesto, if you like—threw major shade on the more traditional wrapped and revealing evening looks that closed the show. That might be the Versace that Donatella imagines people expect from her. But how much better it is when she lets her rock 'n' roll heart run free.

Fashion Brand: Versace | www.versace.com

Versace clothing endure far less avant-garde look. Metal goods, and flash objects decorated pants, leather ladies between the creation of a woman warrior and the image of women between the Banshee.