The Naked and the Dressed Book

When Gianni Versace was shot dead outside his Miami villa on July 15, 1997, few believed that his fashion empire would survive. The chutzpah and flamboyance of Versace the fashion house seemed inseparable from Versace the man. And yet a year later Versace remained buoyant, its reputation and market position if anything enhanced by its creator's tragic fate. This book goes some way to explaining why. From his first 1980 collection, Versace cannily engaged a great photographer, Richard Avedon, who stylishly wedded Gianni's designs to a potent blend of celebrity, beauty, flesh, sex and humour, which became instantly identifiable as Versace--poised, pansexual, tongue firmly in sculptured cheek. Whether in trademarked group shots of intricately entangled supermodels, Stallone nude and po-faced, Elton gleeful in drag, or Bon Jovi proudly strutting his buff bod, Avedon equals Versace--to the extent that his cover can show Kate Moss, without a stitch of Versace (or anything else), and we know that she is thinking Versace. This gorgeous volume collects over 170 photographs, and gives us, as it justly proclaims: "A glimpse of the impassioned shameful opulent titillating sewmanship of that daredevil magician of art and artifice who was and will always be Gianni Versace." --Alan StewartRead More