Haute Couture, Fall-Winter 2001–2002 by Donatella Versace. Collection: "Jardin Sauvage."

January 2002. In the soft, green-lit atmosphere of a tropical greenhouse, she stands tall, motionless — like an icon from a forgotten world. Gloria. Her eyes are calm, but there is a fierce control in the tilt of her head, a silent strength. She isn’t performing. She reigns.

Her body is clad in nearly invisible black mesh — a second skin of mystery. On her right shoulder, abstract fuchsia leaves climb upward like a flame-bound vine, embroidered with precision and sensuality. At her waist, a wide lacquered latex belt, hand-painted with deep fuchsia roses, seems to hold its breath around her. The short skirt, made of black lace, blooms outward in a disciplined puff, like a flower that has learned restraint. Beneath it, black silk leggings elongate her silhouette — pure, poised, contained.

This is high fashion — Fall-Winter 2001–2002, by Donatella Versace — but more than that, it is a vision: a garden-born woman, sovereign, untamed, born of a Jardin Sauvage.