You can count on one hand the number of fashion houses that enjoy the name recognition that Versace does. Today, under the leadership of Donatella Versace—just as in the ’80s and ’90s when the brand was run by her brother Gianni—it is a universal symbol of all that is glamorous and decadent. Versace doesn’t make clothes that are avant-garde, arty, or untouchably elegant; it makes clothes for red carpet photo calls in Cannes and parties aboard a rap mogul’s mega-yacht in Monaco.

Gianni, who founded the company in 1978, was a fashion rock star. He played to his public with grandiose gestures and a genius for marketing.“He was the first to realize the value of the celebrity in the front row, and the value of the supermodel, and put fashion on an international media platform,” Vogue Editor in Chief Anna Wintour said in 1997. “He relished media attention and masterminded it, and everybody followed in his footsteps.”

Bold as brass and supersexy, the house found its perfect representative in the high-’90s supermodel. In fact, some have even credited Gianni and Donatella with creating the breed when they eschewed runway models—generally anonymous at the time—and instead chose well-known print models to make star turns on the catwalk. In a history-making moment in 1991, Versace sent Christy Turlington, Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, and Linda Evangelista down the runway lip-synching the George Michael song “Freedom! ’90.”

“I scream for quality and fantasy,” Gianni said soon after showing his controversial Fall 1992 S&M-inspired bondage collection. “But I understand if these straps of leather are not to everyone’s liking. I don’t mind if people say I’m vulgar.”

Since Gianni’s sudden death in 1997 at the hands of a spree killer, all of the attention—and responsibility for design—has fallen on Donatella. Her front rows are even more glittering than they were in her brother’s day, and Hollywood is just as enamored. Antonio Banderas has reportedly signed on to star as Gianni in a Bille August–directed movie about the Italian fashion dynasty.

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