VERSACE - SPRING 1995 READY TO WEAR

THE BODY IS BACK

declared Vogue, thus sounding the death knell for grunge. Of course, la bella figura was never, ever, out of fashion at this Italian house, a point Gianni Versace drove home by making corsetry his focus for the season. When models weren’t wearing stays, they were in slips of dresses featuring ribbon lacing or structured, nip-waisted suits trimmed with hook-and-eye detailing. Luxuriant Veronica Lake hair lent retro appeal to the styling, “proving once again” that Versace was “king of sexy nighttime dressing.”

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here were floor-grazing slips, some with delicate drapes; wiggle dresses; and floaty empire-line nightie styles. Novelty prints featuring butterflies and ladybugs added a sense of winking playfulness to the whole. “I want to make people believe in fashion again,” the designer said.

In conversation with Vogue, he expanded on his approach: “It’s the body-consciousness of today’s women that gives the return to glamour a real current attitude. It’s all about basic forms with wonderful shapes and a great attention to the cut.”

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gging through the archives of Gianni Versace‘s work at his eponymous brand, which he founded in 1978, one might find a caption describing the late designer as the “toast of Paris, Miami, and New York.” But really, no matter where he showed—and his destinations also included Los Angeles and Milan— the late Versace designer’s work inevitably made a statement, thanks in no small part to Versace’s close relationships with the supermodels of the day.

Among his inner circle were models.

VERS

spring 1995 r

SACE

ready to wear

89 looks

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72 models

coterie who, in the wake of Versace’s murder in 1997, have remained loyal to his younger sister Donatella Versace, as she took over the storied house. It was this group of five supermodels who walked in Versace’s Spring 2018 show, a glorious, moving homage to her late brother on the 20th anniversary of his death. The show was filled with motifs and silhouettes pulled straight out of the Versace archive, albeit with a distinctly Donatella update. Here, take a fabulous trip down memory lane and see the original looks on the biggest supermodels of the time.

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ersace dressed the models as ladies for day and sirens for night. His “grownup and glamorous heavy silk satin dress,” wrote Vogue of a chartreuse number Steven Meisel photographed on Linda Evangelista for the July 1995 issue, “recalls the glory days of Sophia Loren.” Its seeming simplicity belied the flawless, body-skimming structure. The designer had no time for gimmicks; fashion, he said, is “about cut, quality, and construction.”

43 dresses

54 colors

Every designer seems to have a favorite decade, and Gianni Versace’s was the swinging 1990s.