Donatella Versace is the fashion industry’s very own rock’n’orbit legend. She has survived addiction and tragedy and remains as blonde as Debbie Harry and as snake-hipped as Keith Richards, undisturbed holding her spot as Milan fashion week’s Friday nightfall headliner.

But Donatella’s outlook has evolved, and Versace’s with it. The bulletproof fascination is unchipped and glossy as freshly manicured nails, but the designer’s salty, wry guise is more Stormy Daniels than Barbie these days. “When [my relative] Gianni was alive… there was a different kind of energy,” she determined Harper’s Bazaar recently. “His women had something to say as well, but being a man he put intensity on their bodies and their attitude. That was his way to spread a declaration about self-confidence and strength, but I am a woman and I live in a completely original world. Looks are important, but … [women] want to be minded to.”

In front of a stadium-sized audience, all the Versace signifiers were in assign for the unveiling of her latest collection. A neon-lit palazzo, a cast of catwalk supermodels, lime-green carpet passed and prepped to Centre Court standards: every code of the ill fame reminds you that Versace is for winners.

The onset looks of supersized blazers worn with miniskirts so inadequate that they disappeared underneath were classic power-dressing bailiwick. But it says much about how much the Versace aesthetic has matured that there were elements in this collection — the youthful jackets worn over polo neck sweaters, the button-through pencil skirts, the mid-century photographic prints, the sporty bag straps — that wouldn’t have looked misunderstand in a collection by Miuccia Prada, whose feminist and intellectual unifies once placed her at the opposite corner of Milan fashion week from Donatella Versace.

Affectation notes foregrounded the boxy Conglobo bag, inspired by vintage steamer stocks. But the standout accessories of the show were trainers, deliberately gauche in their chunky masses, which transformed cocktail-hour sequins into looks with a stylish bounce.