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Rock And Royalty
The ever-changing look of Versace couture, as seen--and modeled--by the kings, queens, mega-models, and jokers of rock & roll. 280 illustrations, 200 in color.
276 pages, Hardcover
First published September 1, 1998
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September 1, 2021
Sometimes I'm disgustingly shallow and materialistic.
I've wasted a lot of hard gained money on clothes and jewelry and any sort of expensive crap I could barely afford.
I spent a whole decade fighting to the death in order to make my colleagues' off-duty outfits look like shit.
As a teenage student I was more into wearing the coolest shades than into Kant's Critique of Pure Reason.
In short: I'm a horrible person. In fact I can't help but love this book and hate the hypocrisy of so many moralistic crusades against the things it represents, because I'm as self-indulgent as anybody else when it comes to my own flaws.
This collection of photographs is among the best tributes to Gianni Versace's work and its importance in the aesthetics of the last forty decades. It was published in 1998, one year after Andrew Cunanan, male prostitute and wannabe male model/actor/whatever, shot the designer among the lavish mosaics of Casa Casuarina, Miami.
Just like his sister Donatella's synthetic face, Versace's Medusa became omnipresent in the 90s due to its unique blend of beauty and excess, elegance and excess, a hypnotic kaleidoscope of colours and ornaments. A modern, gorgeous Babylon of rhinestone, burnt like a phoenix in the flames of its own grandeur.
This book is a gem and a guilty pleasure. The contributions include photogrpahs by Avedon, Meisel, Ritts, Weber, Mapplethorpe, to name but a few. Not only conventional, staged photo shoots, but also backstage snapshots and gorgeous portraits of fashion, music, sport, and even royal celebs: Princess Diana was indeed one of Versace's closest friends, together with Elton John, Prince, Madonna, and - clearly - the top female and male models of the decade.
It's both art in its purest form and shameless exploitation of the body, talent and greed, ruthlessness and unfathomable beauty.
Whether you like it or not, those were the days. Linda Evangelista, Stella Tennant, Christy Turlington, Kate Moss were finally overthrowing the 80s healthy-and-wealthy looks. Those were the controversial years of Heroin Chic, Anorexic Chic, Lesbian Chic, of fifteen year old girls fainting on the runway, of ODs in fancy restrooms. It was a short but devastating epiphany in which all the darkness lying beneath the glossy surface of the fashion business exploded in a firework of pure talent. A Champagne Supernova in the sky, as the song goes.
Versace's tragical death on that bright sunny morning is the culmination and the symbol of a whole world: ephemeral, cruel, magnificent.
These are the random thoughts that occur to me every time I leaf through this book.
I've wasted a lot of hard gained money on clothes and jewelry and any sort of expensive crap I could barely afford.
I spent a whole decade fighting to the death in order to make my colleagues' off-duty outfits look like shit.
As a teenage student I was more into wearing the coolest shades than into Kant's Critique of Pure Reason.
In short: I'm a horrible person. In fact I can't help but love this book and hate the hypocrisy of so many moralistic crusades against the things it represents, because I'm as self-indulgent as anybody else when it comes to my own flaws.
This collection of photographs is among the best tributes to Gianni Versace's work and its importance in the aesthetics of the last forty decades. It was published in 1998, one year after Andrew Cunanan, male prostitute and wannabe male model/actor/whatever, shot the designer among the lavish mosaics of Casa Casuarina, Miami.
Just like his sister Donatella's synthetic face, Versace's Medusa became omnipresent in the 90s due to its unique blend of beauty and excess, elegance and excess, a hypnotic kaleidoscope of colours and ornaments. A modern, gorgeous Babylon of rhinestone, burnt like a phoenix in the flames of its own grandeur.
This book is a gem and a guilty pleasure. The contributions include photogrpahs by Avedon, Meisel, Ritts, Weber, Mapplethorpe, to name but a few. Not only conventional, staged photo shoots, but also backstage snapshots and gorgeous portraits of fashion, music, sport, and even royal celebs: Princess Diana was indeed one of Versace's closest friends, together with Elton John, Prince, Madonna, and - clearly - the top female and male models of the decade.
It's both art in its purest form and shameless exploitation of the body, talent and greed, ruthlessness and unfathomable beauty.
Whether you like it or not, those were the days. Linda Evangelista, Stella Tennant, Christy Turlington, Kate Moss were finally overthrowing the 80s healthy-and-wealthy looks. Those were the controversial years of Heroin Chic, Anorexic Chic, Lesbian Chic, of fifteen year old girls fainting on the runway, of ODs in fancy restrooms. It was a short but devastating epiphany in which all the darkness lying beneath the glossy surface of the fashion business exploded in a firework of pure talent. A Champagne Supernova in the sky, as the song goes.
Versace's tragical death on that bright sunny morning is the culmination and the symbol of a whole world: ephemeral, cruel, magnificent.
These are the random thoughts that occur to me every time I leaf through this book.
Displaying 1 of 1 review