Fashion designer Gianni Versace would have turned 76 on December 2nd. If he were alive today, his sister Donatella might have thrown him a big, lavishly themed birthday party. Donatella liked parties, her brother actually not so much. He preferred to spend the evening with a book or in the studios of artist friends. Knowledge and art: Versace soaked them up like a sponge and recast them in the form of iconic fashion collections.
However, Gianni Versace should only be 50 years old. He was shot dead by serial killer Andrew Cunanan outside the door of his Miami mansion in the summer of 1997. An era suddenly came to an end. Versace has been a designer for almost three decades. Both his style and his appearance have shaped the international fashion world and left their mark. 25 years after his death, on his 76th birthday, the Groninger Museum is honoring this legacy with the opening of the largest Gianni Versace retrospective to date. FashionUnited attended the press launch.
Gianni Versace: Artistic Collages
For Gianni Versace, who was born in the southernmost tip of Italy, the northernmost tip of the Netherlands might not seem like the most logical place. But his work fits seamlessly into the context of the Groninger Museum. This has mainly to do with the building. The complex, designed by Versace’s compatriot Alessandro Mendini, is a prime example of postmodernism in the second half of the 20th century. Rather than being classic and symmetrical like many archetypal museums, it’s sort of a collage of different architectural styles, decorated with colorful tiles. Built between 1987 and 1994 when Versace was more or less at the peak of its career, it houses a museum with a strong focus on design that has also hosted exhibitions by fashion designers such as Viktor & Rolf and Azzedine Alaïa.
Like the architect Mendini, Versace incorporated a variety of forms into his work. Art history was often his starting point. From the baroque style to floral still lifes to punk and pop art, Versace drew inspiration from many influences. Each season he presented a new collage of colours, motifs and materials in constantly changing atmospheres. The exhibition was curated by Saskia Lubnov and Karl von der Ahé. They wanted to show exactly these sides of Gianni Versace. “We wanted to make it clear how many facets he had, how many different sources of inspiration,” says Lubnov in an interview shortly after the press presentation.
The exhibition begins with classic designs from Versace. These are works from the early years of his brand, founded in 1978, and from the years before that, when he was still designing for the Milan fashion houses Genny and Gallaghan. Several designs from this period can be seen in the exhibition: Greek-style tunics and trousers with pleats, made of monochromatic fabrics or shiny metal mesh.
This fondness for the Greek has to do with the origins of Versace. Versace came from Calabria, a region of Italy that lived between 800 and 600 BC. was conquered by the Greeks and in which many remnants of the then Greek Empire can still be found. Greek silhouettes and motifs, such as the Greca ornament, would later appear repeatedly in Versace’s work. In 1993, the head of Medusa, a character from Greek mythology, became the Versace logo. Medusa appears in the myths as a beautiful but cursed figure with coiling serpents on her head instead of hair. Everyone who looks at her turns to stone. It is beauty and danger at the same time: it catches the viewer’s gaze, who then cannot tear himself away.
captive looks
Anyone who sees the rest of the exhibition will understand why this metaphor is so appropriate. In each room, one or more collections are displayed based on a source of inspiration. It can be an art movement or a place like Miami Beach, where Versace bought a mansion when he became successful. He had a Medusa mosaic laid in the garden.
The collections are real eye-catchers. So does the Spring/Summer 1991 pop art collection, which includes a dress adorned with Andy Warhol portraits of Marilyn Monroe and James Dean, and a dress printed with brightly colored Vogue covers. In the same room are ensembles of butterfly motifs, leopard prints and a trompe l’oeil print of theater curtains. They are almost dizzying.
Perhaps the collection that drew the most attention was the Fall/Winter 1992 collection entitled ‘Miss S&M’. It was a provocative collection, mostly in black, with lots of leather, straps and cutouts. A nod to the clothing worn in BDSM communities.
The collection shocked with the title ‘Miss S&M’
The collection was heavily criticized in the 1990s, for example by fashion journalist Suzy Menkes, who felt that the collection objectified women. But there were other tones too. That same year, actress Elizabeth Hurley stole the show at the film premiere of ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’. Wearing a dress from the collection with open side slits that appeared to be held together by gold-tone safety pins, it was the moment that made her world famous. Hurley said of the dress, and of Versace in general, “Unlike most designers, Versace doesn’t design their dresses to eliminate the female form, but to celebrate it.”
Hurley herself had no role in the film: she was leading actor Hugh Grant’s date. Besides Hurley, Versace has made other people famous, and they made him famous. For example, he designed for celebrities such as Elton John, Prince, Madonna and Princess Diana. His model casts were also top-class: Versace regularly engaged supermodels such as Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista and Claudia Schiffer for its shows.
Dresses from New York, buttons from Milan
Two of the show’s highlights, Hurley’s dress and one worn by Princess Diana, were loaned by the Metropolitan Museum of New York. However, most of the other pieces in the exhibition come from private collections. The exhibition came about thanks to them: Lubnov and Von der Ahé met one of the collectors a few years ago and started talking about his collection. They brought together more collectors and sponsors, and after six months the first exhibition took place. At that time it was still in Berlin, the hometown of Lubnov and Von der Ahé. The exhibition then traveled: first to Borås in Sweden and then to Groningen.
The collectors traveled with them. Present on the opening day in Groningen include lender Doris Brugger, former PR manager for Gianni Versace, and Franco Jacassi, owner of Milan boutique Vintage Delirium. Among other things, he designed the Monroe dress, but he also brought a whole collection of buttons specially designed for Versace, which can be seen in the exhibition under the bell jars. Versace had an eye for detail, that much is clear. Incidentally, these details can be studied up close in the exhibition; most silhouettes are not behind glass.
After the death of Gianni Versace, the creative direction of his brand passed to his sister Donatella. Her work is not shown in the exhibition: it is a Gianni retrospective, not a Versace retrospective. Yet those who look at today’s Versace will see that it still holds firmly to Gianni’s heritage: the lush prints and also the black straps from the S&M collection still make occasional appearances, and for the spring/summer 2018 collection Supermodels appeared on the catwalk in metal mesh drapes.
So there is a lot to draw inspiration from, as the exhibition shows. “Gianni Versace was a man full of imagination,” said Brugger at the opening. “He could have lived another two hundred years.”
This article was similarly published on FashionUnited.nl. Translation and editing: Barbara Russ