The Groninger Museum has announced it will showcase a retrospective on the late fashion designer Gianni Versace. Described by the museum as “a pioneer in the fashion world,” the exhibition will honor the couturier and his trailblazing designs, showcase men’s and women’s outfits, accessories, drawings, interior designs, and footage of the legendary catwalk shows from the Italian designer’s glory days between 1989 and 1997.
The Gianni Versace Retrospective will be a “colorful, daring and emotional exhibition’ that will bring the kaleidoscopic persona and creative pursuits of the designer, who was murdered 25 years ago, back into the spotlight. “Abundant catwalk shows, fashion connected to music and photography, commercials as art pieces. No one connected the arts as much and as original as the Italian fashion designer Gianni Versace did,” the museum said in its social media release.
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All items on display will be original pieces sourced from private collections, the museum emphasized. They will highlight how Versace linked fashion with music, photography and graphic design and led the way in the transformation of fashion shows and advertising campaigns into works of art.
According to the Groninger Internet Courant, the infamous safety pin gown that instantly shot then young and little-known Elizabeth Hurley to stardom back in 1994 will also be on display. For those who are not in the loop, the dress still continues to be referenced as a piece of art and even has its own Wikipedia page.
A special section of the retrospective will focus on how Versace turned previously unknown models into superstars, such as Naomi Campbell, Claudia Schiffer and Cindy Crawford, and his advertising campaigns with talented photographers like Richard Avedon, Helmut Newton, Peter Lindbergh and Bruce Weber.
The exhibition will be curated by Versace experts Karl von der Ahé and Saskia Lubnow.
The Gianni Versace Retrospective will open on December 2, 2022, and will run till May 7, 2023.
