Histrionic master, visionary. Gianni Versace left an important imprint as much in fashion as in contemporary costume. The designer from Calabria was able to make the whole world dream through clothes that combined the rigorous tailoring construction inherited from his mother’s school, with a baroque maximalism influenced by the artistic current of pop-art and the lively and colorful music scene of the 1980s-1990s. His clothes, imbued with so much culture, knew how to speak to a very wide audience without failing to come to terms with Medusa’s complex and articulated imagery.
To wear a Versace garment was to embrace a new body language: provocative, extolling sensuality, showing oneself as sexy and master of the stage. Music stars were the first to pick up on its potential, but the total coronation came in the 1990s with the putting of top models on the catwalk. An intense life, contaminated by the arts and continuous experimentation, ended coldly on the distant July 15, 1997 at the home she had dreamed of so much with her partner: Casa Casuarina.
Murder in Casa Casuarina: 25 years since the death
She was returning from the News Café, where she bought coffee and newspapers almost every morning before returning to the stoic beauties of the mansion on Ocean Drive she shared with her partner Antonio. On that tragic July 15, 1997, the emperor of fashion Gianni Versace was gunned down on the steps of Casa Casuarina at the hands of Andrew Cunanan, a young and ruthless serial killer, who had reserved his last shot precisely for the Calabrian fashion designer before committing suicide a few days later with the same weapon. It was shocking news for the whole world: musicians, artists, fashion designers, stars and well-known personalities of the world scene mourned Gianni in the cathedral in Milan.
The siblings Donatella, his muse, and Santo, trusted administrator, had the great task of carrying on what no other creative at his level had managed to do: continue to reconcile so many souls, so very different. Those were difficult years for the Versace family, which today, 25 years after his passing, continues excellently to carry on his name and the most eclectic Maison in the world.
