There are designers I greatly admire and want to wear if I had the financial wherewithal--Marni, Lanvin, Olivier Theyskens--and then there are designers who I appreciate and respect, but who don't quite appeal to me on a personal level. I am not a sexy dresser (I'm from the Midwest after all) so the latter tend to be the more sexual, body-conscious, and even "loud" designers: Gaultier, Dolce & Gabbana, Cavalli, etc. Of course, no one personified this "sexy" category better than Gianni Versace, who pushed so many boundaries in his career, all the while tailoring with an incredibly sharp eye and a strong identity. I was incredibly upset by his death, which, as Cathy Horyn notes in her nuanced article from today's Times, was 10 years ago this month. Donatella Versace has since soldiered on, through a divorce, a cocaine addiction, an eating-disordered daughter, and major financial difficulties, and while she clearly doesn't share her brother's prolific talent, she has managed to make the company profitable once again, subtly transforming the Versace customer from a jet-setting party girl to a strong, sexy, confident woman. But that's not what the article is about. It's Horyn's personal memories of the siblings behind the brand and the strangeness of the events following Gianni's death. It's not the tidy memoir you'd expect, but rather a loose, sad, yet moving reminiscence, and by far the best piece I've read on Versace in awhile.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Recommended reading
There are designers I greatly admire and want to wear if I had the financial wherewithal--Marni, Lanvin, Olivier Theyskens--and then there are designers who I appreciate and respect, but who don't quite appeal to me on a personal level. I am not a sexy dresser (I'm from the Midwest after all) so the latter tend to be the more sexual, body-conscious, and even "loud" designers: Gaultier, Dolce & Gabbana, Cavalli, etc. Of course, no one personified this "sexy" category better than Gianni Versace, who pushed so many boundaries in his career, all the while tailoring with an incredibly sharp eye and a strong identity. I was incredibly upset by his death, which, as Cathy Horyn notes in her nuanced article from today's Times, was 10 years ago this month. Donatella Versace has since soldiered on, through a divorce, a cocaine addiction, an eating-disordered daughter, and major financial difficulties, and while she clearly doesn't share her brother's prolific talent, she has managed to make the company profitable once again, subtly transforming the Versace customer from a jet-setting party girl to a strong, sexy, confident woman. But that's not what the article is about. It's Horyn's personal memories of the siblings behind the brand and the strangeness of the events following Gianni's death. It's not the tidy memoir you'd expect, but rather a loose, sad, yet moving reminiscence, and by far the best piece I've read on Versace in awhile.
There are designers I greatly admire and want to wear if I had the financial wherewithal--Marni, Lanvin, Olivier Theyskens--and then there are designers who I appreciate and respect, but who don't quite appeal to me on a personal level. I am not a sexy dresser (I'm from the Midwest after all) so the latter tend to be the more sexual, body-conscious, and even "loud" designers: Gaultier, Dolce & Gabbana, Cavalli, etc. Of course, no one personified this "sexy" category better than Gianni Versace, who pushed so many boundaries in his career, all the while tailoring with an incredibly sharp eye and a strong identity. I was incredibly upset by his death, which, as Cathy Horyn notes in her nuanced article from today's Times, was 10 years ago this month. Donatella Versace has since soldiered on, through a divorce, a cocaine addiction, an eating-disordered daughter, and major financial difficulties, and while she clearly doesn't share her brother's prolific talent, she has managed to make the company profitable once again, subtly transforming the Versace customer from a jet-setting party girl to a strong, sexy, confident woman. But that's not what the article is about. It's Horyn's personal memories of the siblings behind the brand and the strangeness of the events following Gianni's death. It's not the tidy memoir you'd expect, but rather a loose, sad, yet moving reminiscence, and by far the best piece I've read on Versace in awhile.
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