GIANNI VERSACE delighted in the collision of diverse ideas, creating flamboyant fashion spiked with thrilling sexuality. On his 20th death anniversary, Vogue and india’s most prolific designers raise a toast to his fierce, audacious and indomitable spirit that continues to live on.
If Gianni Versace, the prolific designer who became the touchstone of Italian fashion, were alive today, he would have been the most millennial-minded designer of our times, harnessing social media to share his full-throttled love of life, cross-fertilising ideas to keep himself abreast with the youth revolution. Imagine what social media craze he would have started with his iconic autumn/winter 1991-92 collection that glorified the cult of the supermodel! He sent Linda Evangelista, Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell and Christy Turlington down the runway, mouthing the lyrics to ‘Freedom 90’ by George Michael. Break the internet? Nah. Annihilate would be more like it.
It’s been 20 years since the swashbuckling savant’s life came to an abrupt end, as he was gunned down by a deranged killer outside his opulent mansion Casa Casuarina in South Beach, Miami. It stunned the fashion and entertainment world. Versace’s funeral in Il Duomo cathedral was packed with fashion behemoths who had poured in from around the world, all stupefied at this senseless murder. Princess Diana attended, too. Who can forget the iconic Vanity Fair cover, shot by Mario Testino, that immortalised her in a white couture dress that Versace chose from his atelier?
Versace was the master of pop culture. And he had a penchant for creating extraordinary moments of pomp and provocation. When he dressed Elizabeth Hurley in a black Versace dress held together by several over sized gold safety pins for the premiere of Four Weddings And A Funeral (1994), the label “went viral,” to use today’s parlance, becoming a household name and catapulting Hurley onto the world stage. The dress became so popular that today it even has its own Wikipedia page.
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