In anticipation of the upcoming Costume Institute exhibition, “Camp: Notes on Fashion,” we’ve digitized collections from which pieces were selected for the show or catalog. This collection was presented on October 7, 1990, in Milan.
“To use art in a flat way, without creative intervention, is in bad taste. I mix it up,” said Gianni Versace when talking to Vogue about his Spring 1991 collection—one of those that Donatella Versace revisited (and reissued parts of) for Spring 2018, when she commemorated the 20th anniversary of her brother’s tragic death.
Part of this show’s resonance, then and now, is the way that Versace channeled his personal passions, which ranged from the high-brow to the populist, into his clothes. An avid art collector and a voracious consumer of news and pop culture, the designer made many references to paintings, including those of Sonia Delaunay, Victor Vasarely, and the Russian Constructivists (if you happened to miss the point there was a pair of sequined pants that read pittura). Versace’s palette was rich with primary colors this season. Also artful, but more accessible, was the designer’s homage to Vogue magazine. He reproduced then-contemporary and Deco-era covers on a series of playful catsuits that redefined the notion of being fit to print.
