It’s a decidedly elegant body of work — a consensus that won’t take much back and forth to reach. But why did Vitale feel compelled to make this the prologue to his chapter in Versace’s history book? Donning a marketer’s cap, my own mind darts to the fact that, while producing desirable objects remains an essential part of the equation, these days, there’s a good deal of pressure — responsibility, even — for luxury fashion houses like Versace to prove themselves as more than just product peddlers. Whether it’s sponsoring art institutions, producing films, or, as is the case here, putting out projects motivated solely by artistic intent, proving cultural cachet is key to justifying lofty projections of brand identity (and price points).
There’s also no other value in fashion today quite as mantra-fied as ‘community’ — and this, at a glance, could be seen as an attempt to echo that chant. Rather than a project co-authored by an orchestrated Versace clique, though, what we have here feels less rigid; more like a loose (though still carefully considered) constellation of distinct, decidedly accomplished creative voices, each offering their instinctual responses to a theme. “It’s almost like a dinner party,” Vitale quips, with “What does Versace feel like?” as the evening’s animating topic.
For Vitale, it’s amid this volley of calls and responses that the spirit of Versace — an ineffable humanity — resides. “There are so many facets of Versace’s values that are very close to me,” its perennial championing of “people that break the rules, but with grace” among them. Another is that with Versace, it’s always been about family — a very particular family, that is. “Versace embodies the values that any family should have,” he notes. “Healthy ones, like a sense of closeness, generosity, honesty, intimacy… but then there are also feelings that are more tragic: subversion, confrontation, even anger.”
