This year marks the 20th anniversary of the brutal murder of Gianni Versace in broad daylight in Miami Beach. This tragic fact has brought the late designer back into the public eye, most notably as the subject of Ryan Murphy’s next American Crime Story, set to air on FX next year. Versace’s horrible death has been told and retold ad nauseam. Possibly to redress this, this evening Donatella Versace chose to stage her Spring 2018 show at Milan’s Triennale museum as a tribute to Gianni’s inspirations and creations, to celebrate “a genius . . . an icon . . . my brother.” She wanted the focus to be on his life, not his violent end, but also his feminist leanings and the eternal relevance of his designs.
And so, for the first time since assuming creative direction of the company, she pulled directly from archives the key prints and pieces from the years 1991–95, the period that saw some of Gianni Versace’s most iconic collections: Vogue, Warhol, My Friend Elton, Icons, Baroque, Animalia, Native Americans, Tresor de la Mer, Metal Mesh, and Butterflies. From each of these print motifs, Donatella Versace remade and reinterpreted the blouses, square-shouldered jackets, leggings, catsuits, corsets, trenches, mini sheaths, and maxi skirts. Not to mention high-waisted jeans, logo tees, fanny packs, and jeweled stiletto boots. Each thematic grouping was rendered in a full capsule collection so that one can, say, have a full wardrobe of Vogue cover girls to wear day to night, or starfishes, or the faces of Marilyn Monroe and James Dean. One piece—a black-and-white ball skirt worn originally by Naomi Campbell in the Native American collection (Fall ’92)—was literally from the archives as the work on it was such that it could not be replicated in time for this show (where it was worn by Natasha Poly). Naomi did make an appearance in gold chain mail (Metal Mesh, Fall ’94), flanked for the finale by Carla Bruni, Cindy Crawford, Claudia Schiffer, and Helena Christensen, to the chorus of George Michael’s “Freedom! ’90.”
This show is impossible to review in terms of the clothes because history has judged them at this point and they are winners one and all. Gianni Versace’s work was extraordinary for its out-of-the-box humor, sense of history, total hubris, and playful hotness. And here’s the thing: It holds up beautifully over time. Which glam leisure hottie doesn’t want a baroque legging? Which mega babe new supermodel—Gigi, Bella, Kaia, Candice (all in the show)—doesn’t want a tiny black crepe dress with gold embroidery snaking over the shoulders and hips, or a fully beaded thigh-high covered in Warhol icons? The butterfly fanny packs alone scream, Buy me now, Kendall! The jeweled starfish belt? Winner. And there are strong-shouldered stretch-velvet dresses in the gentlest of pastels—mint, blush pink, sky blue—palette cleansing and immensely relevant, the colors and silhouette of this season (yet first shown 22 years ago).
Gianni Versace knew that beauty and vulgarity were chic bedfellows—something his sister prizes greatly in his aesthetic legacy, along with his daring. And she is smart enough to identify in this moment the relevance of that synergy. “We got this,” she seemed to be saying to anyone who might cast her brother’s legacy otherwise. We got this.
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