Donatella Versace adds the role of guest editor of the new Baroness Magazine to her Holiday 2019 resume. Founded by art and creative director Matthew Holroyd and Dazed & Confused editor in chief Isabella Burley, the glamazon magazine is also inspired by “scandalous celebrity sisters the Kardashians”. The magazine, writes Crack, “is putting female deviants back in control.”

Donatella collaborated with Sarah Baker on a new art project — anchored in Baroness and an accompanying six-part video campaign— for the 2019 holiday season.

Baker is a San Francisco-born, London-based multimedia artist known for her provocative works that explore the worlds of luxury, celebrity and fashion. The artist adds the twist of romantic novels and soap operas to her vision — and no archetypes deliver this fashion reality with more clarity than the 80s nighttime soaps ‘Dynasty’ or ‘Dallas’,

Versace said of Baker: “She’s a visionary and knows exactly how to represent the Versace woman. My designs empower and this campaign fully represents that.”

Baker and Helena Christensen, dressed head-to-toe in Versace, are the main protagonists in the print and video narrative which includes a wedding party where the bride, played by model Meghan Roche, wears an Atelier Versace dress and the wedding gifts span from a pair of Chain Reaction sneakers to the Virtus bag.

Not even Telemundo could’ve thought of a more twisted and fabulous story, says mitú.

No More Catfights

Donatella Versace is quick to add that the ad campaign and editorial artistry don’t represent a catfight about to break out among oil-rich Republican women dripping in money. AOC lovers, we must reprogram our 80’s vision of ‘Dynasty’ and ‘Dallas’ and the endless tearing down of women by women in the Jackie Collins tradition. The feuds are over.

“It’s time we all support each other. No more catfights!” reads a handwritten epigraph by Donatella Versace, echoing the sentiments of Sarah and Matthew, writes i-D. “Approaching this project, we were really interested in the night time soap opera genre, of which ‘Dynasty’s’ a great example,” she says. “But we really wanted to do something different from the typical narrative, where you have main female characters plotting against each other. In our story, the women end up helping each other, they work together instead of against each other.”

Baroness Issue #1

The first issue of Baroness, featured the world’s “finest perverts” is sold out. Published with three different covers by Harley Weir, Penny Slinger and Sylvia Sleigh. Baroness described its first issue with a message that reinforces Donatella’s message:

Calling the shots from beneath her black satin sheets, the Baroness has shed her filthy rich husband Baron for the life she really wants: a riotous whirl of champagne, dangerous liaisons and the hottest, sexiest men in town. Each night she begins her own dazzling odyssey, filled with passion, sweat drenched sex, sadistic vengeance and breathless suspense. But the never-ending party comes at a price, one even Baron’s outrageous alimony payments can’t afford… So came the birth of Baroness, the erotic paperback for pleasure seekers who desire a taste of her life in the fast lane. Funding her hedonistic lifestyle, issue one features many of the hookers and hopefuls who beg at her feet, including a very special gentleman who proves two heads are better than one. Then there are contributions from her deviant girlfriends Sarah Baker, Federico Radaelli, Romy Haag, Georgina Spelvin and Molly Parkin, an exposé on her favorite fetish, forniphilia and why Marie Claire is a slut. There have been many imitators, but no one gets what she wants quite like the Baroness.