Versace

by Mariuccia Casadio

The concept of fashion as entertainment was one of Gianni Versace's distinguishing contributions to the fashion world. He was one of the first designers with an all encompassing vision of how to keep his audience entertained. Versace would draw upon the talents of the best photographers to create the intended Richard Avedon if he wanted to elicit the sensation of movement in the photo, Bruce Weber to conjure the image of model as rockstar, Irving Penn for studious still shots, Herb Ritts for sculptural effects. The very concept of "The Supermodel" arose during Versace's reign as "King of Fashion". He embraced the rockstar and the supermodel, using only the best most charismatic models who would not wilt in his spotlight. Versace's Haute Couture lines were not designed for the less than svelte of us, but they weren't afraid to borrow from the grungy undertones of rock & rollers' wardrobes either. Perhaps it came from his longtime association with the theater and costume design, but Versace took the adage "all the world's a stage" to heart. Gingko Press is proud to announce the first in a series of 18 books on the greats in Italian fashion design with the release of Made in Italy - Gianni Versace. This highly visual book traces the work of Versace from his first women's collection in the late seventies through the development of his trademark daring sensuality in eighties to his last collection (for fall 1997) and untimely death.

Genres: Nonfiction

128 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1997

Reviews

[Pocki · Rating 1 out of 5]

Absolutely ridiculous writing. It’s supposed to describe Versace’s style and I guess some inspirations and impact, but it does this as if someone was word vomiting a college essay wanting to use as many fancy words as possible while trying to meet the length requirement. Such convoluted writing that I kinda just ended up forgetting what I read on the previous page right away. And speaking of that, even the layout is stupid. The word “emulation” has been divided in two (cause there just had to be a small picture of a animal print scarf in that corner) between pages… sure fine, that’s okay I guess, if it wasn’t for the fact that the text doesn’t continue on the next page, but 11 pages later! And sentences are cut the same way, making the book a back and forth affair to be able to finish reading a section before looking at pictures that aren’t always perfectly clear why exactly they go there in relation to the text.

And then… the text just ends. And not in a way that feels like it should be the end of the book either.
But, at the very end of the book is a timeline of important points in Gianni Versace’s life and career. Now that I did like.

The photography is fine (obviously, we’re talking photographers like Avedon and Penn), but I wish we got just another line of information in addition to year and photographer. Like name of the collection of piece, or even model’s name considering how instrumental Gianni Versace was in creating supermodels.

Yes I know this is from the 90s, which is obvious by the fashion depicted. But that’s absolutely fine. It’s the reason I read it. I wanted Gianni’s Versace. Not Donatella’s. But even normal 90s writing wasn't this bad.

I’m curious to see if the Moschino book in the same series (which I also picked up at the library, that has a surprisingly big fashion book collection) is equally annoying.


(the text deserves negative stars, but it's nice to have a collection of photographs of the fashion... Maybe 1.5 stars? But I'm mad at this book for several reasons so it gets only one)