And nowhere was that fun more in evidence than in George Michael’s 1992 “Too Funky” video. “It was the height of fashion,” says performer Joey Arias, of the moment in which it was shot. “Everybody wanted to be those supermodels vogueing the runway!” (Or, as Michael would say, “Everybody wants a lover like that.”) “Moulin Rouge Meets Vegas!” An Oral History of George Michael’s 1992 “Too Funky” Video Looking for a good time, we decided to put together an oral history of “Too Funky,” which more than holds its own against the MTV- and fashion-friendly “Freedom! ’90” with its cast of supermodels Christy Turlington, Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista, Naomi Campbell, and Tatjana Patitz.
A rallying cry for individuality, “Freedom! ’90” became fashion history when it was lip-synched by the supers on Gianni Versace’s runway. “Too Funky,” with its Anne Bancroft voice-over, is lighter fare lyrically. Visually, it approaches the Baroque, especially in contrast to the squatter-like set of “Freedom! ’90.” Evangelista was the only returning member of the cast, but she was joined by top models including Nadja Auermann, Tyra Banks, Estelle Lefébure, and a “cast of thousands” culled from clubs on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.
Michael hired Thierry Mugler—the French dancer turned designer known for his dramatic silhouettes and audacious showmanship who now goes by Manfred—to shoot the video. Lefébure, who says she’d be happy to repeat the experience, describes the creative team of Mugler and Michael as “two masters with strong personalities and visions.” Inevitably, they came to loggerheads. The atmosphere, says performer Julie Newmar, quickly became one of “hysteria, lots of smoking and raw nerves.” By the end of the shoot, Michael was longing for his freedom from Mugler, and Mugler was learning that sometimes clothes can _un_make the man. Thankfully, art triumphed in the end. “Too Funky,” because of its costume drama, is guaranteed to make you smile and hit replay.
EMMA SJÖBERG WIKLUND (model who wears the motorcycle outfit and robot costume in the video): The “Too Funky” video was made to raise money for AIDS research. Somehow I think George Michael was then in a conflict with Sony, so he was not able to do any albums before his contract was over . . . but he could do this song, “Too Funky,” that was put onto the Red Hot + Dance album. I know that George wanted to work with Thierry Mugler because his shows were a bit like cabarets—it was more like going to a theater show; it was extraordinary. Mugler always had big surprises . . . there was always some kind of music combined with these incredible outfits. The video was a charity job; we all did it for free.
DANILO (the video’s hairstylist): George knew Naomi, Christy, Linda . . . all the girls, who were all the girls who walked with us [in Mugler’s camp]. And who didn’t know Thierry at that point? We had incredible stars walking our runway and an eclectic mix of phenomena going on. George was fully aware and would show up at shows because [Mugler] was the show to be at, you know. It was an amazing event socially. Also, I think Thierry and his views on sexuality and sensuality were things that very much titillated George because I think he was bound at that time in his life. JOEY ARIAS (a performer who plays the video’s couturier): George Michael contacted Mugler, and Mugler came up with the storyboard, which he does very beautifully, with Stefano Canulli, who does all the final drawings, and presented this to George, and George gave approval. He said: “Yes, this is it!”
DANILO: We all donated our time. It took place in Paris and Thierry Mugler and George Michael were the directors, they collaborated. George brought the song and Thierry brought the visuals, that’s really how the collaboration came down. As far as the work, we busted our asses and it went on for three days. We were all so passionate about it. There was an interesting element going on there, too. Because the directors were butting heads, we the collective said: “You know what? This is all about AIDS. It’s not about anything but that, we need to move ahead.” So we really tightened as a group even more then. It was a blast, and it was very hard work, and I never tire of looking at it, it’s so well done.
JULIE NEWMAR (Catwoman actress and sometime Mugler model who plays a midinette who goes mad): Mugler wanted to show that the backstage of a couture show was hysteria, whereas in front of the camera it was all glamorous and cool.
ARIAS: Mugler’s characters were superhuman. No one’s just mediocre, it’s all about superhumans: the thinnest and the tallest and the most extreme and the most beautiful. But [it is also about] adoring the human form, not making fun of women or males. Mugler loves the form and he loves to push how far it can
go.
DANILO: The last 10 years of Mugler [the designer left his namesake house in 2003], I was his head hairdresser. I would go to Paris for two weeks to prepare, and I had my own salon and I just built wigs and built wigs . . . this was one of them, but this one had its own category because it was more of a theater wig. The inspiration was Mugler, Marilyn, Dietrich—all of those things—and a contemporary finish. So it had that wave and the curl [that is] a little bit like a Nike swoosh . . . It’s so expressive on its own. That particular wig . . . became very iconic for [Linda]. It had a helmet quality to it [and was treated] with wig varnish so that it never moved.
SJÖBERG WIKLUND: I started working as a model in Paris around 1989. I had a background as a dancer from Sweden. Because Mugler’s shows were very theatrical, he wanted us to do things like dance or act or pose or look like insects or whatever his vision was. It suited me very well as a person, and we got along very well. And of course he wanted people to be able to walk in his shoes—that was one of the most important requirements! They were very high and not always made for walking, but they looked fabulous. I was very fortunate to be working with him for many years and to be wearing some of these amazing pieces that he did [including the Harley-Davidson bustier that would later feature in Beyoncé’s Sasha Fierce visuals]. On the runway it was Niki Taylor who wore it, and then I got to wear the motorcycle in the video. [Mugler told me:] “You should have chewing gum, and you should play with it, you work it.”
ARIAS: Connie Fleming is trans. She used to be at the Boy Bar and Mugler saw her [there]. It was on Eighth Street and every week it had this drag show—really big productions, amazing. And so Connie Girl came out—in those days she was like a size 3 and she was in like 9-inch heels, almost like ballerina shoes—and she came out and she did these kind of flips, flipping up and down and twirling, and the place went insane and Mugler was like: “Oh, my God, I gotta use her,” and then put her on the runway. So that’s her with that cowboy outfit .
ARIAS: I’d met Mugler in 1980 with Klaus [Nomi]. It wasn’t until the late ’80s that he’d start popping around some of my shows, and we started talking about this and that, and then I got an invitation to come to Paris [for “Too Funky.”] That was the first time we actually worked together.
He wanted me to be the couturier, the Edith Head character. I was the one bossing people around. When we first met, he had me in a pantsuit with a low-waisted belt, and then we were talking and he just said: “You know what, I don’t think so, we’re going to put you in a long tight skirt instead.” [I wore] a pleated chiffon skirt almost to my ankles, almost, maybe like three-quarters past my knees, with a pearl corset and then a tight black knit sweater with the jewelry, some kind of necklace wrapped around and some fetish shoes from London.
The character was great. Mugler said, “It’s kind of like me. You’re going to be me, but Edith Head. You’re going to be in charge of this house, and you’ve got to put your foot down and really do these things. When I say do that, do it. When [I say] rip that dress, you rip.” It was that beautiful white dress [Linda wore]. There was a scene backstage where I go up to her and [tug] and Mugler goes, “No, no, no, no, no. Please, like this,” and he just went up and went riiiiippppp. I said, “Oh, okay, no problem.” So whenever he said to do something, I just went for it, and he was laughing and said, “Yeah, exactly!”ARIAS: Julie was supposed to be one of the girls backstage. She was fed up with being back there, she was like a revolution. She snaps, she goes berserk, and that’s why I’m trying to slap her to calm her down. I was doing pretend acting and she said: “No, you’ve got to get me going. I want you to really push me and slap the hell out of me.” And I said, “Really?” And she turned around and just slapped me. She goes, “Like that.” I was like, “Okay!” So I shook her. She goes on the runway and I’m trying to stop her, [and there are] all these women walking out in full-on couture, and she comes running out and I’m trying to stop her and she throws that robe off and she’s all latex and she takes over the runway. It was kind of like the ugly duckling that bursts into the beautiful swan.
NEWMAR: I was dressed as a midinette, wrapped in white. Mugler had me pushed out onstage, thus embarrassing my character and exposing me out on the catwalk. Someone grabs my white jacket, thus exposing my naked ambitions. I am now in a black vinyl bodysuit, so I throw myself down on the catwalk, my legs in a wide-open split, and this, to my surprise, ended up in George Michael’s version of the video.
DANILO: Julie, who is an amazing woman, [was] hitting it, doing splits on the runway. I think she was 60 or 65 when she was doing that.
ARIAS: Julie said, “I’m going to do this, I’m going to do this, but please make sure you get it because I’m only going to do it once, and if you don’t get it I’m very sorry.” I think she walked out once just to make sure the lighting was right, and then they got her into position . . . and then she came out . . . and she kicked and rolled and flipped and did what she did in one take and the place went insane, insane.
NEWMAR: The rest of the production was hysteria, lots of smoking and raw nerves. On the second night real trouble arose. They had gone over the $1 million budget, and I remember holding the producer in my arms, he was weeping from nervous helplessness, exhaustion. That’s when George Michael took over.
ARIAS: At one point, two days or three days into it, [George said,] “Okay, I got what I need.” And Manfred said, “Okay, but I’m not done. I’m still shooting and we’ve got two more days.” And George said, “No, I think we’re done,” and there was a big fight. [Manfred said,] “I’m not done.” [George said,] “I said we’re done.” . . . Then George said, “Well, you know what? I’m the one who is the superstar here, not you.” And then Mugler just snapped. There was this fight and everyone was sitting there like, “What the heck is going on?” And then Linda Evangelista was kind of the go-between, and there was a meeting in the back for two hours, I think, and then they both walked out arm in arm and I could see that Manfred was a little like mmmm, but they were like laughing and they said, “We’re going to continue shooting and we’re going to finish this up.” And then George started looking behind the lens and he put those [stills] in himself later on.
SJÖBERG WIKLUND: The robot I will never forget because . . . it was made on my body and they had to make a plaster. I still have a picture of it, actually, when I’m fully em-plastered with a corset under it, and then it was literally made in this chrome with little hooks to close it. I know the feeling of a chastity belt after wearing that.
Thierry always had a very clear picture of every outfit from every angle, from what wig Danilo was supposed to be doing . . . what model should be wearing [it] . . . how the makeup should be done . . . every detail. [There] would be like 10 or 12 fittings for the outfit; it wasn’t one fitting. You would literally sit half the night in Mugler’s design room and wait for your time. It was fun, but it was crazy if you think about it: All these fittings for one outfit for the fashion shows.
[The robot] was an amazing piece that was really handmade, and of course it didn’t stretch. I was always quite bruised after wearing it, because it had to stay up somehow and so it was kind of tight, and then there was the helmet that was literally made on the skull. Before going out on the runway, of course, you couldn’t have any fingerprints on it, it had to be polished. I remember people with cotton gloves and literally things to clean the windows with to polish the chrome.
ESTELLE LEFÉBURE (a top model who plays a femme fatale in latex): George really respects women, you can feel it. He was directing me, saying, “You look [even more] beautiful if you do this or that.” How many days of your life does George Michael tell you this? It was amazing.
Thierry asked me to play the role of femme fatale: sexy and irresistible to any man. I used to do all Thierry’s shows. [His woman was] powerful, determined, extremely feminine, [a] sexy soldier. For the video, he asked to accentuate that even more. [My outfit was] outrageously hot and my hair was horsehair . . . so hot! Doing a show with Thierry is working with one master; doing a video with Thierry and George is working with double pressure, as you work with two masters with strong personalities and visions. It was one of the most impactful bookings I’ve ever done. People still remember me in that video, with my name written, like Linda, Nadja, and Tyra. It’s a reference, it had a massive impact, even on my life. I’d love to shoot another one.
NEWMAR: There must have been 100 of the world’s most beautiful models flown in for this production. There was Linda Evangelista in her white feathers—what gorgeousness. The video is as hot as can be.
DANILO: One of the things I’ve had the pleasure of creating and building and doing structurally is [Linda’s] feather headdress. I went to the maison de plume there in Paris where the family—they did Louis’s, they go so far back. They go into early 1700s, that family. They have extinct feathers in their drawers. This is Paris, where they really take the art serious. I picked all those ostrich plumes that we created into that [headdress]. It’s that kind of detail that goes into everything: working, sketching, drawing, fabricating—all the components.
Linda Evangelista is an Italian Supermodel who was one of the leading faces of the supermodel era of the 1990s.
Born in Canada in 1965, supermodel Linda Evangelista began her career in her teens, working for a local department store. After getting noticed at a small modeling contest, Evangelista began doing international work. By the mid-1990s, she was one of the most sought-after faces in the modeling world.
Supermodel. Raised in a traditional Catholic family, Linda Evangelista was born May 10, 1965, in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, a small town near Niagara Falls. She began modeling in her early teens after landing some catalog work for a local department store.
When Evangelista was 16, a talent scout from the Elite New York Agency spotted the young model at the Miss Teen Niagara Contest. Modest work soon came her way, including a few international opportunities. But Evangelista's modeling career nearly came to a screeching halt after she was asked to pose nude at a shoot in Japan. She refused, and then called the Canadian embassy to fly her home, ready to give up modeling work for good. It was only after graduating from high school and listening to the advice of her mother that Evangelista decided to give modeling another try. Then, in the fall of 1988, accepting the advice of photographer Peter Lindbergh, Evangelista famously cut her long, light brown hair into a shorter bob. This new look shocked the fashion world, and organizers canceled 16 out of 20 shows she was scheduled to do. But then, something funny happened. Everyone started talking about her new look, and with that notoriety came work. Soon, as Evangelista later recalled, she had "every Vogue cover around the world…and then people came around and decided they liked the short hair."
As one of the world's most recognized faces, Evangelista wasn't immune from becoming a bit of a diva. In 1990 she uttered a line that went down in the annals of fashion history when she said that models like herself don't get out of bed for less than $10,000 a day.
The comment certainly earned plenty of groans, but it did little to diminish her stature in the modeling world. In 1997, Evangelista received a special lifetime achievement award at the 1997 VH1 Fashion and Music Awards. In addition, MTV ranked Evangelista second in its list of top models of the 1990s. After briefly retiring from the catwalk in 1998, Evangelista returned to modeling in 2001. She's continued to work well into her forties. In 2012 she appeared on the cover of the Italian edition of Vogue.
In 1987, Evangelista married Elite model agency boss Gerald Marie. The couple divorced in 1993.
Over the years, Evangelista has been linked romantically to a number of high-profile men, including French soccer player Fabien Barthez, Sex and the City cast member Kyle MacLachlan, and French billionaire Francois-Henri Pinault. Pinault whom she dated for several months beginning in 2005, is the father of her only child, a son named Augustin James Evangelista, who was born October 11, 2006. Her relationship with Pinault, who is now the husband of actress Salma Hayek, took an ugly turn in 2012 when Evangelista sued for child support. After several days of courtroom drama, the former couple reached an undisclosed settlement.
Investigators still don’t know why Andrew Cunanan killed Gianni Versace. On July 15, 1997, Cunanan approached the famed Italian designer as he returned to his Miami Beach mansion after a morning trip to a ersace twice in the back of the head, according to FBI records. At the time , Madonna and Elton John. His murder, which shocked the nation, is the focus of FX’s The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story.
What is known about Cunanan and Versace is that the fashion mogul was not Cunanan’s first victim. Cunanan was a serial killer, suspected in four other deaths. He was on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list, the subject of a national manhunt, and was hiding out in Miami Beach’s gay scene at the time he killed Versace.
Authorities believe Cunanan’s killing spree before Versace targeted ex-lovers, including some he may have believed may have given him HIV.
Hours after Versace’s shooting death, authorities identified Andrew Cunanan as the prime suspect. The 27-year-old was on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list, suspected in the killings of four other people in Minnesota, Illinois and New Jersey. The FBI painted Cunanan as a highly intelligent and dangerous man who desired a life of luxury. The California native, who could speak two languages, dropped out of college and funded his lifestyle thanks to relationships with older, wealthier gay men, federal investigations found. The FBI believes that in addition to working odd jobs, Cunanan was a prostitute.
Twenty years after the murder, Cunanan’s motive is still unclear. Cunanan and Versace did not know each other, according to People, although they may have briefly met prior to the killing. Federal investigators believed Cunanan may have been targeting gay men. Versace had a longtime boyfriend, Antonio D’Amico. The FBI believed Cunanan may have been seeking revenge on former lovers or clients who may have given him HIV, records show.
The investigation into Versace’s murder ended July 23, 1997 — eight days after the designer’s death — when Cunanan apparently shot himself to death on a boat house, about two miles away from Versace’s house in Miami Beach. The suicide ended the high-profile manhunt that followed the global news coverage of Versace’s murder.
Following the overwhelming success of The People v. O.J. Simpson in 2016, FX's American Crime Story has returned for a second season, this time centered around the brutal murder of renowned designer Gianni Versace. The Italian fashion visionary was shot and killed on the front steps of his Miami Beach mansion by 27-year-old serial killer Andrew Cunanan on July 15, 1997.
American Crime Story's second season focuses not only on Versace's assassination, but also on the criminal investigation following his death and the events that led his killer, Andrew Cunanan, to pull the trigger. (Glee star Darren Criss portrays Cunanan in the series, and it turns out, he's a spitting image of the killer.)
1. Cunanan died by suicide, shooting himself with the same gun he used to kill Versace.
Eight days after Versace's murder, Cunanan's body was found in a second-floor bedroom of a houseboat anchored off Collins Avenue, just three miles north of Versace's Miami Beach mansion. A caretaker, who had heard a gunshot while checking in on the seemingly unoccupied houseboat, immediately notified police. A SWAT team lobbed tear gas into the houseboat and, 12 hours later, announced they had found the body of wanted fugitive Andrew Cunanan. He did not leave behind a suicide note..
2. He had an IQ of 147 and was known as a prolific liar.
Born in National City, California on August 31, 1969 to Modesto Cunanan, a Navy veteran turned stockbroker, and Mary Anne Schillaci, Andrew Phillip Cunanan was the youngest of four children. As Maureen Orth reports in her book Vulgar Favors, Cunanan had an IQ of 147, making him incredibly bright for his age. Cunanan attended The Bishop's School in La Jolla, California, a private school where most of the other students came from families that were wealthier than his.
In order to fit in, Cunanan made up stories about his background, which has led many to believe that he showed early signs of antisocial personality disorder—previously referred to as psychopathy or sociopathy. Cunanan would even change his appearance throughout school according to what he felt was most attractive at the time. Later in life, Cunanan would claim that his father was an Israeli millionaire and a Fifth Avenue aristocrat.
3. He memorized the encyclopedia at
the age of 10.
Cunanan was the only one of his siblings to attend a prestigious and expensive private school school. "He was my father’s pride and joy," his brother Christopher Cunanan told interviewer Diane Sawyer in 1997,according to ABC News. "[He was] very smart. When he was about 10 years old, he had read the whole set of encyclopedias … and memorized it. And you could ask him any question. Pick up any edition and ask him any question, and he would tell you.”
4. His family found out he was gay
when he was 19.
By the time Cunanan was 19, he had become a frequent nighttime patron at local gay bars and restaurants. During this time, his religious mother found out that he was gay, something other members of his family had known but never acknowledged. It wasn't long after this that Cunanan left home and moved to San Francisco, where he was a more visible part of the gay community.
5. He dropped out of college and
befriended wealthy men.
In 1987, Cunanan enrolled in the University of California San Diego and majored in American History, but he dropped out two years later, eventually moving to San Fransisco. He became a fixture in the nightlife of the Castro district, a gay neighborhood, befriending wealthy older men, and also reportedly took an interest in creating violent pornography.
When news of his killing spree spread, his friends and acquaintances fled the city to avoid running into him and potentially becoming his next victim, according to an article published in the San Diego Reader in May 1997.
6. His life was bankrolled by a wealthy older man named Norman Blachford, who eventually cut him off, sending Cunanan into a downward spiral.
Blachford, one of his wealthy lovers, broke up with Cunanan in 1996. Blachford had allegedly been bankrolling Cunanan's cushy lifestyle, providing him with a $2,000 per month allowance, a fancy car to drive, and vacations to New York City and the South of France. Then, things went sour. “He was dumped by his latest sugar daddy," Donna Brant, who was the managing editor of America’s Most Wanted at the time of Versace’s murder, told ABC News. "He was losing his prowess among his peers. He had gotten sloppy and lost his looks, and the star was fading."
Sources said Cunanan's mental health suffered when his lifestyle took a hit. "Andrew's self-worth was tied to the finer things in life, what [people] could do for him," criminal profiler Candice DeLong told ABC News. "Being accepted in high society and by wealthy people was what he expected. If he didn't get them, he was lost." It was during this period of self-doubt that Cunanan took the life of his first victim.
7. He killed four people before murdering Gianni Versace.
Not long before his first murder, Cunanan told his friends in San Diego that he was flying to Minnesota to "settle some business" with old friend Jeffrey Trail, according to an article released byThe New York Times a few months after his first murder. While it's not clear how Cunanan and Trail knew each other, investigators at the time believe they had been romantically linked.
Trail, a 28-year-old propane salesman, was found beaten to death with a claw hammer and rolled up in a rug that was stuffed in the closet of architect David Madson's apartment on April 27, 1997. Madson, another one of Cunanan's lovers, would soon become his second victim.
"[Andrew] loved David Madson very, very much.... [But after the breakup,] David didn’t want anything to do with him," Cunanan’s former roommate Erik Greenman told ABC News in 1997. "I mean, David was Andrew’s life. He said many, many times that he would give up everything to move out to Minneapolis for David."
Madson's body was found with gunshot wounds to the head and back on the east shore of Rush Lake near Rush City, Minnesota on May 3, 1997.
Cunanan later drove to Chicago and killed 72-year-old Lee Miglin on May 4, 1997. No connection was ever found between Cunanan and Miglin, a prominent real estate developer, and officials concluded that it was a crime of opportunity while Miglin was cleaning a garage near his home, according to The Chicago Tribune. After the murder, "Cunanan went into the family's home, ate a ham sandwich, shaved and rested," according to ABC7Chicago.
He then drove Miglin's car to New Jersey, where he murdered yet another victim: William Reese, a cemetery worker, who appeared to have been shot to death so Cunanan could steal his 1995 red Chevrolet pickup truck.
8. He was the 449th fugitive to be listed on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list.
Following his fourth murder, Cunanan had become one of America's most-wanted fugitives. Though law enforcement and the FBI were on the hunt for him, Cunanan made his way to Miami, eventually taking up residence for nearly two months at the Normandy Plaza hotel, about four miles north of Versace's mansion.
The hotel's night manager claimed Cunanan paid in cash and would often change his appearance, possibly even wearing wigs to alter the way he looked, according to Vanity Fair.
9. He met Versace in San Francisco years before the fashion designer's murder.
In 1990, Versace and his future killer met at Colossus, a San Francisco nightclub, where Cunanan was pleased to find that Versace recognized him from a party at his house on Lake Como. Whether Cunanan had ever actually been to Lake Como is unknown, but he took the recognition and used it to his advantage in his social circles, dropping Versace's name frequently.
10. He shot Versace on the front steps of the designer's Miami mansion.
On July 15, 1997, Gianni Versace was shot to death on the front steps of his Miami Beach mansion. While a witness and police pursued Cunanan, he managed to escape. That morning, investigators found Reese's stolen pickup truck, along with a pile of discarded clothes, a personal check, a passport, newspaper clippings about his past murders, and a pawnshop ticket. At the time, Cunanan was wanted for the murders of Trail, Madson, and Miglin.
11. The book Vulgar Favors outlines theories about the motive behind his killing spree.
Vulgar Favors: Andrew Cunanan, Gianni Versace, and the Largest Failed Manhunt in U. S. Historyby Maureen Orth was published in 1999, two years after Versace and Cunanan's deaths.From missteps by law enforcement at the time of the original investigation to interesting theories about Cunanan's potential motivation for shooting Versace, the book takes a close look at who Cunanan was and how law officials attempted to put together the pieces of the puzzle leading up to Versace's murder. The book about Cunanan's life was also used as inspiration for the upcoming season of American Crime Story.
12. Darren Criss stars as Cunanan in the American Crime Story series.
Criss looks nearly identical to Versace's killer in the FX series, and he seems to have found common ground with his character as well. "At the end of the day, if you think of the worst person that you know, that's done the worst things ever, you have more in common with them than not," Criss said of playing Cunanan in an interview with radio personality Elvis Duran. "The fact is, those differences are big, but they're small in number ... So, what's kind of been a joy for me is to find as many redeeming things as possible in someone that you fathom as something so horrible and to really get the audience to ask themselves, 'At what point could this have been me?'"
Gianni Versace is played by Édgar Ramírez; Penélope Cruz plays his sister Donatella Versace; and Ricky Martin plays Versace's partner Antonio D'Amico.
It was 1997. The designer, 50, had just unlocked the gate of his home after having breakfast at News Café on Ocean Drive when a man in his mid-twenties, serial killer Andrew Cunanan, pulled a gun and shot him twice in the back of the head. International media swarmed into South Beach to cover the sensational slaying which took place outside Casa Casuarina, his elaborate and opulent 10-bedroom Ocean Drive mansion. Versace’s blood stained the coral front steps of the property after the shooting. The world famous, part-time resident lived in the home for five years before his murder. The manhunt for Cunanan, once a male prostitute, made international headlines in the days that followed.
He was suspected in the murders of four other men and was already on the federal ten most wanted list at the time he shot and killed Versace.
A little more than a week after Versace’s murder, Cunanan killed himself on a shuttered houseboat about 40 blocks north of the mansion as police closed in.
More than a decade and a half later, investigators still don’t know why Cunanan murdered Versace or his other victims in the deadly crime spree that spread from Minneapolis to Chicago to South Beach.
At Versace’s funeral in Milan Italy a week after his death, celebrity mourners included Elton John, Georgio Armani and Princess Diana; one month before her own death in Paris.
The British designer Kim Jones was confirmed as the new artistic director of Dior Homme on Monday, two months after he stepped down as artistic director of men’s wear at Louis Vuitton. He will replace Kris Van Assche, who had been in the role 11 years.
The creative reshuffling and the hiring of Mr. Jones, who will start April 1, are the first major strategic decisions by Pietro Beccari, chief executive of Christian Dior Couture, who joined the brand from Fendi in November.
The news will most likely heighten speculation about the future of Maria Grazia Chiuri, the fashion house’s artistic director of women’s wear, whose tenure has received mixed reviews. And it comes just days after another major fashion house, Nina Ricci, said its creative director of three years, Guillaume Henry, was stepping down.
The announcement on Monday ends feverish speculation about Mr. Jones’s next move. The news of his appointment came minutes after LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, the French luxury conglomerate that owns both Christian Dior and Louis Vuitton, said that Mr. Van Assche would be leaving Dior. Mr. Van Assche will, however, remain in the LVMH group, a statement said, in a role that has yet to be announced.
“I am delighted to welcome Kim Jones at Dior Homme,” Mr. Beccari said in a statement, adding that Mr. Jones would “create an elegant men’s wardrobe both classic and anchored in contemporary culture.”
“I am confident that he will continue to further develop Dior Homme on a global scale,” Mr. Beccari added.
There had been much speculation in recent months about where Mr. Jones would go after his unexpected departure from Louis Vuitton in January, although it recently emerged that he would stay in the LVMH stable. Mr. Jones, a graduate of the London art and design school Central Saint Martins, held his position at Louis Vuitton for seven years, and had at one stage been tipped for the top creative job at Burberry before it was given to Riccardo Tisci. He will present his first collection for Dior Homme in June, during Paris men’s fashion week.
“I am deeply honored to join the house of Dior, a symbol of the ultimate elegance,” Mr. Jones said. “I am committed to create a modern and innovative male silhouette built upon the unique legacy of the house.”
In his previous role, Mr. Jones was widely applauded for revitalizing the Louis Vuitton men’s wear line for a younger generation, mixing the house’s travel heritage, which sits at the highest end of the price spectrum, with a more street-friendly style. His previous position remains unfilled, although there was much discussion during Paris fashion week last month over whether Virgil Abloh, the American designer behind the Off-White label, might be tapped for the role.
Dior does not break out revenue for its men’s business. However, Christian Dior Couture posted overall revenue of 43.7 billion euros, or $53.7 billion, last year, an increase of 11 percent over 2016. In April, LVMH took control of Christian Dior Couture in a $13 billion deal, simplifying a complex ownership structure under which Dior was the parent company of the group.
