Versace and Steven Meisel Bridge Past, Present and Future in Versace Obsessed, Chapter II

Set up as a series of cinematic vignettes, the images bridge past, present and future.

Models are immersed in Versace’s visual culture, surrounded by artefacts that make the archive visible: walls layered with archival magazines from the 1990s and 2000s, original tearsheets, and objects that have rarely, if ever, been seen outside the studio.

These elements sit alongside Meisel’s new photographs, creating a dialogue where old and new Versace images inhabit the same frame. Among the artefacts are rare volumes of Vanitas, a key document of Gianni Versace’s world that captured his uncompromisingly opulent vision of fashion, lifestyle and interior design.

In the campaign, these books are treated almost like relics and props at once anchors to the origins of the House’s aesthetic, but also part of the mise en scène that Meisel uses to tell a contemporary story…