Rare Gianni Versace Pret-A-Porter Pop-Art Print Silk Jacket Spring / Summer 1991
View Similar Items
Rare Gianni Versace Pret-A-Porter Pop-Art Print Silk Jacket Spring / Summer 1991
About the Item
- Designer:
- Dimensions:Marked Size: 40 (EU)Bust: 17 in (43.18 cm)
- Place of Origin:
- Period:
- Condition:
- Seller Location:W1, GB
- Reference Number:Seller: GV2631stDibs: LU568212782
Gianni Versace
The signature extravagance of legendary fashion designer Gianni Versace — forever aligned with glamour, sex, celebrity and spectacle — can overshadow the Italian couturier’s broad and deep engagement with history and culture. Today, his vintage dresses and gowns, handbags, sunglasses and other accessories look astonishingly fresh and freshly relevant.
More than any designer before him, Versace mined celebrity, music and Pop art for inspiration, and his subversive, maximalist and unabashedly seductive designs infused high fashion with an entirely new ethos. “I don’t believe in good taste,” he once explained. Instead, he had a sexy good time with fashion — as he did with life.
Gianni Versace was born in Calabria, Italy. His mother was a successful dressmaker who employed more than 40 seamstresses. As a child, little Gianni marveled at her workshop, which would become a university of sorts, where he learned the exceptional construction techniques that were at the foundation of his creative expression.
In 1972, at age 25, he moved to Milan to work in fashion. He launched his first collection — and his label — in 1978, with his older brother Santo managing the business concerns. Soon, sister Donatella, whom Gianni dressed and took to discos when she was still a child, joined the family venture, where she had a creative role and managed enormously popular ready-to-wear lines such as Versus.
Vintage Versace — and Gianni Versace Couture, which debuted in 1989 — has become catnip for modern fashion enthusiasts who seek out the now-iconic house codes that originated in the designs of the 1980s and 1990s. His glamorous and seductive apparel — the clingy skirts and slender, strappy party dresses, as well as the erotic magazine ads that publicized them — looms large, but Versace’s art and historical influences were also vast.
Versace was an art collector, and he took on commissions to create costumes for theatrical performances during the 1980s and spoke of looking to numerous cultures for inspiration. The New York Times noted in 1997 that the fashion industry “is now driven by contemporary culture because Mr. Versace made it that way.”
Insiders consider his 1991/1992 Autumn/Winter runway show — which featured supermodels Christy Turlington, Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell and Linda Evangelista lip-synching George Michael’s “Freedom” — as the moment when the two worlds of fashion and pop culture became one, changing both forever.
Versace's adventurous spirit of design resulted in his creating jewel-toned prints rooted in Grecian motifs, Etruscan symbols, the Italian Baroque and Andy Warholʼs Marilyn Monroe. There were slinky dresses in Oroton, his patented chain-mail textile that draped like satin, and leather bondage ensembles. Sex sold, for both women and men. Wrote the late curator Richard Martin, “[Versace] became the standard-bearer of gay men’s fashion because he eschewed decorum and designed for desire.”
Following Versace’s tragic murder in 1997, Donatella took over the role of artistic director and continued to evolve the house codes with a twist of her feminine and feminist perspective. Today, Santo Versace is chief executive officer of Versace and Donatella is its chief creative officer.
Browse an extraordinary collection of vintage Gianni Versace evening dresses, handbags, day dresses and more on 1stDibs.
- Vintage Issey Miyake Khaki Linen Blazer JacketBy Issey MiyakeLocated in Oakland, CAVintage Issey Miyake menswear inspired blazer. Tan khaki color. Exaggerated shoulders with slightly puffed sleeves. Long fitted shape. Pintuc...Category
1990s Japanese Blazers
- Dolce & Gabbana D&G Snakeskin Windbreaker JacketBy Dolce & GabbanaLocated in Oakland, CALightweight faux snakeskin print jacket by D&G, Dolce & Gabbana. Tan, brown and black nylon. Two chest pockets. Hips at hip. Fabric is nylon. Tagged a size 44. This is ...Category
1990s Italian Jackets
- GIORGIO SANT'ANGELO METALLIC KIMONO FAN BLOUSE 1970sBy Giorgio di Sant' AngeloLocated in New York, NYGIORGIO SANT'ANGELO METALLIC KIMONO FAN BLOUSE 1970s Crimped black and gold kimono-cut top, non-conforming black net sash decorated with metallic gold thre...Category
1970s Italian Jackets
- PAUL SMITH Brown Silk Cotton Blend Bold Floral Print Blazer JacketLocated in Bilbao, ESPAUL SMITH Brown Silk Cotton Blend Bold Floral Print Blazer Jacket Material: 70% Wool 30% Silk Colour: Brown Type: Jacket Size 42 Our Company Fashion Division is specialized in E...Category
21st Century and Contemporary Italian Sport Jackets
- Vintage Silk Blue Jean Chanel dress with jacket with matching jacketBy Chanel BoutiqueLocated in Bilbao, ESAbsence of vulgarity was central to Chanel’s definition of luxury, a view formed during her impoverished early life. Born in 1883 in Saumur, France, as Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel, she was just 12 years old when her mother died and her itinerant father put her in a home for orphaned girls run by a local convent. She learned to sew and, upon moving to Moulins six years later, became a seamstress. She also sang in nightclubs, earning the sobriquet “Coco,” an allusion to a popular song of the time. Beautiful, one of a kind vintage silk dress and jacket for as a coktail dress...Category
21st Century and Contemporary French Skirt Suits
$1,376 Sale Price25% Off - BALENCIAGA Black Shiny Cropped Puffer JacketBy BalenciagaLocated in Krakow, PLBalenciaga's coat for Pre-Fall makes a worthy investment piece especially since puffers never really go out of style. This iteration is designed from glossy vinyl with a cropped he...Category
2010s Coats and Outerwear