GIANNI VERSACE: “THE BOUNDARIES BETWEEN SEDUCEMENT AND VULGARITY CHANGE WITH HUGE SPEED!”
Mister Gianni Versace is among the most famous fashion creators of ХХ century. His art fascinates with its baroque scope and unusual life of the colors and of the patterns. As a powerful reformer of the style, he transformed the concepts of the people for elegance and helped to men to break their appearance and to emancipate it by the canons of the strictness, boredom and monotony. Who is Gianni Versace? What influence had exercised on his creative work his mother? What is the most characteristic about his fashion conception? Is the erotic stay behind all his work? Why among his clients distinguish the most famous rock and pop stars?...
He was born at 2th December 1946 in Reggio di Calabria, Italy, and he dies at July 15th 1997. Miami Beach. The sinister shots stop the life of one of the most talented and attractive fashion creators in the world. During the period 1964 – 1967 he studies architecture. In the next four years he manifests as designer and buyer of textiles for the studio of his mother in Paris and in London. For some time he works for different fashion houses as “Jenny” and “Complice”, and in 1978 he opens his own company in Milan.
The same year is the premiere – collection lady’s fashion. In 1979 he launches his first collection men’s fashion and two years later his first fragrance. In the sphere of the haute couture he enters in 1989, when he opens his own atelier of couture in Paris. In 1993 he starts to make the design of furniture of different objects for fitting-up of the house.
He creates the line "Versus" in answer of the incredible interest to the sports and youth style of clothing, offered at reasonable prices. For comparatively short time he with the help of his brother Santo Versace and his sister Donatella Versace succeeds to build an unseen fashion empire that possesses more than 500 boutiques in all over the world and for which work over 6000 employees in dozens of countries. Here aren’t included still more 200 stores for jeans, bringing his name. To the day of his unexpected death his personal fortune is valued at 900 millions of dollars and the annual turnover of the fashion house reaches 1 milliard of dollars.
THE INFLUENCE OF HIS MOTHER FRANCESCA
Concerning the delicate (according to other people complex) relations of Gianni Versace with his native mother Francesca Olandese Versace was written very much and what not. Some people say that she was very severe to him in contrast to her behavior to his brother Santo.
The future great designer was born in the middle of bags of dresses and from an early age he has built one too contradictory attitude to the women. Every morning, when he has to go with his mother in the sewing room, they passed by a brothel. Francesca looked menacing at the little Gianni, warning him how bad are these women, and the child at his turn turned his head and didn’t look at the prostitutes. Somehow or other he is reared quite from an early age with one profession that for him transforms in destiny and in which he is undoubtedly obliged to his mother for the mastery and the professionalism. Thanks to the communication with his mother and the everyday practice and participation in the sewing process, passing in her atelier, Gianni masters the secrets of the craft, he forms in himself professional and responsible attitude to the materials and to the technique of their cutting, sewing and modeling.
Later he remembers of these practical lessons: ”In the sewing room of my mother I learned at technique, at quality and at tradition. I succeed to make good use of this “heritage”. I think that I give individuality to the woman, helping her to “express” herself through my clothes. The person who chooses Versace shows style of living, combining the classics and the fashion spirit”. Concerning his attitude to his brother Santo and to his sister Donatella, it is marked by big love and professionally differentiated approach – Santo is a specialist at the finances and at the management, and Donatella – master of the refined and original accessories, expert in the ready clothing and with unbelievable at sense of contemporaneousness, femininity and dynamics.
For her Gianni says while still living: ”She incarnates the image of the business woman and helps me to understand the conception of the world of the fashion lady”. Today naturally the creative part of the empire “Versace” is managed by Donatella Versace.
On the construction of the unusual and brightly effective Versace’s style together with his mother influence exercise some sign person for the fashion design in ХХ century.
Among the analyzers of his creative work at first place is the famous Paul Poiret the Italian designer admires at time and again and borrows (breaking through his author prism) ideas and motives, related with the theatric effect and with the eclecticism of the fashion. Other emblematic names that impress him and inevitably reflect on his works are the names of Madeline Vionet and of Madame Gré. Skillful embroideries, fine draperies and the metaphorical view to the style are only part of the inspirations that he bears, accepts and interprets.
THE AUTHOR’S CONCEPT OF THE FASHION
The designer gives him self accounts who are the person that are really moving the fashion. According to him, these are the leaders of the public opinion: people that are the leaders in the art, in the music, in the politics and culture and that they don’t afraid changing the rules and create the new and original style. And what is the fashion? Here is one of the multiple his answers, shared for the press:”The fashion always first covers all the changes in the society. It looks in the future; it is always seeking of something new.”
Versace considers himself as an experimenter and to a certain degree – adventurer in the sphere of the fashion design. All around him reflects on his conception of the world and puts deeper or shallower hallmark on his works of art. He really is among the few creators of ХХ century that are able to transform everything in fashion.
What inspires him? From where he obtains ideas and powers his creative accumulators? At first place these are the rest arts – the cinema, the theatre, the literature, the painting, as the everyday life in its bright diversity. A very special source of inspiration in the fashion creative work are the women, moreover – the most various women or like he shares in 1990: ”...Women friends, enemies, young, old, amusing, capricious, pretentious, quarrelsome, intelligent, serious, combative, but never boring”. It inspires him also his life in both super luxurious villas – the one at the coast of the lake Como in Italy, and the other in Miami Beach, at the coastal ocean boulevard “Ocean drive”; they influence at him of course in their own way, the works of art of Marcel Proust and “Batman”.
The antique sculptures, the values of the baroque, as in fact the special features of the art in ХVІІ and ХVІІІ century unleash his imagination and stimulate him at the creation of the new rich and sensual style of clothing.
Among the great number of approaches to the explanation of his genius is his divine skill to select and to mix the colors. Namely to the rich colorist concept and to his unusual color fantasy is due the fascination of the masterworks, created by him. Curious are his words, said concerning the shades – words of painter and of poet at the same time: ”If you are afraid of the colors, you are afraid of the life that surrounds us with its surprises and with its strangeness.
The colors cheer up this one who wears them and this one who look at them. One yellow t-shirt, one red cashmere blouse, one violet scarf, a pair of bright blue gloves according to me can express strong vocation for the art and for the painting, combined with sure and big love to the nature. I don’t want any more some of the colors to stay only in the memory and in the culture of the past, for that reason I give them back generously, I want to color the people, using them as palettes, covering them with tattoos to shake all the people of the snooze of our cities”, says he for magazine “Epoca” (Milan).
Versace is original and without concurrence because he doesn’t allow compromises to the quality of making and of the quality of the material. His materials – silk, wool, cotton, chiffon, lace, leather, satin, velvet, taffeta and especially the mixtures are a personification of his style – rich, authentic and polyphonic.
Referring on the stupid dispute who is greater Armani or Versace, we can confide in the fashion analyzer Colin McDowell who marks that Gianni Versace doesn’t get into the trap of the ultra feminine style and of course the elegance is also so good as his great concurrent and compatriot Giorgio Armani. Like him, he creates “refined clothes that allow at the sexual sure women to project their nature like this as they want to”.
EROTICISM OVER EVERYTHING?
The beauty of the naked or of the half-dressed body, its seducing relief, the hinted or the directly offered eroticism – all this organically interweaves in the disposition of the designer to be at the same time provocative and seductive. For him the beauty is created to be seen as by the men, as by the women.
When two women comment one handsome man (half-naked at the beach or effectively dressed in the street or in the bar) they use expressions and epithets, much more different from the words of two men who discuss the beauty and the elegance of one woman. But is there are boundaries between the seducement and the vulgarity, between the sex and the porno?
At such kind of questions Gianni Versace answers categorically and together with this philosophically: ”The boundaries and the parameters change with huge speed. Madonna that shows sex, until she is singing, was unthinkable in the 40s. And from other side, one of the best and one of the most ancient books, where the sex and the seduction are explained and illustrated with big simplicity, is namely Kama Sutra.”
To enter deeper in the concept of the designer for the eroticism is good to make sense of his opinion of the artistic and sexual phenomenon Sharon Stone.
For her, Versace thinks that she possesses beauty that goes beyond the success of one movie. Making analogy with the myth of Kim Basinger and the movie “9 ½ weeks”, he notes that the eroticisms, enlarged on the cinema screen, is able to make all the people dreaming.
Gianni Versace expresses his attitude to the beautiful and provoking naked woman’s body and through the selection of top models for his fashion-shows as the sexy Naomi Campbell, Helena Christensen, Claudia Schiffer, Cindy Crawford, Christy Turlington, Yasmeen Ghauri, Kate Moss, Nadia Auerman etc, as also the extravagant Christen McMenamy that in 1996 poses in front of the objective of Juergen Teller naked with inscription “Versace” in the style of the “heroin chic” of the middle of the 90s. Just her substandard character and even not so proportional features and physical harmony, and special features of the character and of the biography (she is over 30, she drinks, she smokes and she lives an irregular life) and her image of “bad girl” attract the interest of the fashion creator.
It is no chance that Gianni Versace chooses her for advertising face of his collection autumn-winter 1995-1996. But somehow or other the opinion of the designer for the eroticism and for the sex-appeal couldn’t be understood, if we don’t enter deep into his enthusiastic attitude to the ancient Greek and ancient Roman cultures and the confessed in them cult to the beautiful and well-shaped naked body – symbol of life, health, love and success. Versace didn’t put ever the eroticism over everything, but concerning his works of art it can be affirmed convincingly that the eroticism is present in everything, that without it and without it life-asserting symbolism is unthinkable the style “Versace”.
Madonna, Bruce Springsteen, Elton John, Prince, Michael Jackson, Sting, Eric Clapton, Cher, David Bowe – this is quite modest part of the megastars of the world pop stage, dressed by Gianni Versace. Among his clients are not only representatives of the artistic world, but also monarchic person like the departed Princess Diana and Prince Edward. What joins the style of Versace with the style of the rock and the pop culture? The eccentricity, the provocativeness, the scandalous or (and that’s all this taken together) the wish to be different at every price?
The designer is related with the artistic and with the musical world. His sentimental mentality responds and understands perfectly well the motives, the philosophy and the wishes of the representatives of the musical circles. The inexhaustible imagination and over-emotionality unite them. This explains why for his spring-summer collection 1995 the maestro invites Madonna to present his models, devoted to the 100th anniversary of the cinema and together with the photographer Steven Meisel to stamp the wonderful incarnations of the singer in the character of the cinema stars from the different times. Seven years after the murder of Gianni Versace, his sister – Donatella, engaged again Madonna for advertising face and for her personal consultant for the incredible amount of 10 millions of dollars.
Terry Edgins throws additional alight on the relationship of Gianni Versace with the celebrities:”In the spirit of Armani, Versace courted the flashiest stars – Sylvester Stallone, Tina Turner and Elizabeth Hurley. But Versace also so often got in touch with the people with bad reputation, as Mike Tyson that very often was wearing “Versace” at public places. Gianni Versace him self boasted once at one reporter that the rapper Tupac Shakur “was wearing Versace” in the day when he entered in the prison and in the day, when he was discharged.” The connoisseurs of the fashion loved to say that the wives of the rich people were wearing “Armani”, until their mistresses preferred “Versace”.
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The art of one of the fashion genius of ХХ century Gianni Versace can’t be understood, if it won’t be considered as the perfectionism and the virtuosity of his performance, as the richness and the luxury of his handwriting. In the times of the minimalism and of the cold chic he bravely creates in the spirit of Emilio Pucci and of Christian Lacroix.
The baroque dose beauty and elegance with which he generously showers his admirers privileges him as designer of the luxury, of the color feast and of the the non-shy sex-appeal. This was seen clearly not only in his seasonal collections, but also in his ambitious projects for the cinema, for the theatre, for the opera and for the ballet. His eroticism, like the eroticism in antiquity is vital and strong as the life is because it obtains its saps of life from the reality and from the history, realizing that without it is impossible the real beauty. Gianni Versace always stays the designer of the colors, of the bright patterns and of the youth freedom. And this means – creator of the change, creator of the future.
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