Glitz abounds in Gold Coast tribute to Versace

SURFERS PARADISE - Heads turn like windmills as Annette de Cler strides along The Esplanade in Surfers Paradise in her gold bikini and black knee-length boots.

Apparently oblivious to the attention, she pauses by a white vintage car and extracts a 20c coin from a tiny leather purse. Bending down, she pops it into a parking meter and leaves an explanatory note on the windscreen.

She is a Surfers Paradise meter maid, an institution on Australia's Gold Coast. Conceived as a tourism gimmick, they feed expired meters, sparing visitors a parking ticket.

In recent years, they have acquired a raunchy image, posing for Penthouse and selling advertising space on their bikini bottoms.

The meter maids epitomise the Gold Coast, with its strip of southern Queensland beach backed by souvenir shops, fast-food outlets, sleazy nightclubs and skyscraper hotels that block out the sun.

It is here, just north of Surfers, that the spirit of the late Gianni Versace is being set in concrete. Palazzo Versace, a six-star hotel intended to be a homage to the flamboyant fashion designer, is nearing completion.

The sterling 100 million ($320 million) hotel, being supervised by Gianni's siblings, Santo and Donatella, will have 204 rooms with interiors and furniture designed by Versace.

It will have a private marina and artificial beach. The decor, like the catwalk collections, will be full of baroque flourishes: mosaics, marble balustrades, colonnades, fountains, classical sculptures, a giant Medusa head on the lobby floor.

How fabulous, how Gianni.

Scarcely audible amid the hype and excitement, two questions are being posed. Firstly, why the Gold Coast? Secondly, will it work?

Santo Versace describes the hotel venture as a logical step: "Gianni was designing furniture and home wares. He always said, 'I like to dress the people, I also like to dress the lifestyle.'

"He loved the idea that people could surround themselves with beauty and elegance. For a hotel, the Gold Coast is the right place."

There is another, more mundane explanation. A Gold Coast property developer, Soheil Abedian, went to Santo Versace's Milan office two years ago, refusing to budge until he had sold him the Palazzo Versace concept.

The hotel, a joint venture between Versace and Abedian's Sunland Group, is supposed to be the first of a global chain. Whether that vision becomes reality depends on the success of the prototype.

There is no lack of money on the Gold Coast, which lures 4 million tourists annually. Surfers Paradise is not a million miles from the Versace ethos - vulgarity, ostentation and artifice, all Gianni's hallmarks are there.

Jenni Purdy, publisher of the glossy Gold Coast Magazine, deems the venue perfect. "Everyone on the coast is very image-conscious. You must be beautiful, blond, tanned, with a 34C cup and a 24-inch waist.

"You've got to wear gold chains, diamonds the size of gobstoppers and labels, labels, labels: Gucci, Moschino, Versace, Louis Vuitton."

But design guru Lloyd Bond says: "It [Palazzo Versace] looks very, very ordinary. It should be so wow it's not funny ... bring something unique to the hotel experience. I've got a feeling they've stuffed it up."

A collection of concrete blocks and iron railings, plus a few straggly palm trees; a palace it is not. The rooms are the size of butter boxes, contends one gossip columnist.

None has a balcony, and many lack water views, looking out over sights such as Peter's Fish Shop and the Hog's Breath Cafe. All for a starting rate of sterling 260 ($830) a night, rising to sterling 1500 ($4800) for the two imperial suites.

Debrah Redman, the hotel's sales and marketing director, says: "It's not about a view. This is an opportunity to experience the Versace lifestyle. In the past, people who wore Versace were a select few. Now we have made it accessible."

It remains to be seen whether guests agree. And if they feel shortchanged, they may be tempted to uplift something: a Versace ashtray, perhaps, worth sterling 120 ($385) or a Versace glass, maybe a Versace bathrobe, retail value sterling 400 ($1280).

The rumour is that the House of Versace will show its collections at Surfers, making it a fixture of the fashion calendar - London, Paris, Milan, Gold Coast.

Gianni, who had a fine sense of irony, would have savoured the notion. Even Santo, more serious-minded, suppresses a giggle at the suggestion. "As James Bond said, never say never."

- INDEPENDENT