Versace: A True Story of Wealth & Murder

foreign the fashion brand known for its bright colors revealing clothing and the famous Medusa logo today the company is worth well over two billion dollars and yet it was all started by a kid who came from an extremely poor small town versace's rise to the top in the world of luxury fashion is incredible however this is not just a business success story you see versace's life was cut short when he was murdered in Cold Blood Gianni Versace was born in Italy in 1946 in a very poor town with very few work opportunities many people there were illiterate and the local economy was so bad that people moved to other cities to find opportunities as coal miners and farmhands despite their surroundings his mother Francesca made her career as a dressmaker what his father Antonio was an appliance salesman their family was able to stay in their Hometown and work their way into the middle class they were one of the only families in the town who could afford to buy a car on a television however all was not well in the Versace household you see Gianni had two siblings his brother Santo and sister fortunata and on a family trip to a carnival in 1952 his sister scraped her knee and contracted tetanus the doctor then treated her with the wrong medicine and within 24 hours she was dead at the age of 10 still wearing her party dress through this grief Gianni's pair parents decided to have another child this was Donatella Johnny was 10 years old at the time and they would go on to become best friends but growing up Gianni would spend a lot of time in his mother's dress shop watching her as she made her customers feel like the most beautiful women in the world in fact he spent so much time in the dress shop but his mother was worried that he wasn't spending enough time with his friends Gianni was also considered to be a bit of a troublemaker he was failing almost all of his classes and he would skip school to go to the beach when he received an allowance he would spend it immediately on clothes fashion magazines and concert tickets his parents were worried for him because he seemed to have no direction in life they wanted him to go to college but it was clear from an early age he just wasn't cut out for it one day his mother was called into school for a parent-teacher conference the teacher showed his mother his notebooks and they were filled with sketches of women his teacher called him a sex maniac but his mother was able to recognize that he wasn't really drawing the women it was the dresses on these figures that stood out when high school was coming to an end there was an exam that Gianni had to take in order to graduate but he cared so little about school that he skipped it completely and never received a diploma his father was Furious of course and believed that he was throwing his life away but Gianni already knew what he wanted to do he began immediately working full-time in his mother's dress shop and learned everything he could about the fashion business in 1965 when Gianni was 19 years old his mother decided to open a boutique next to her Workshop so that he could Branch out on his own he named the shop L.D Francesca Versace and began traveling around Europe to buy some of the best pieces he could find during these trips he was able to make friends with several designers who would go on to be famous like Carl Lagerfeld however when Gianni first returned from his travels his mother was horrified with the clothes he brought back to sell they were considered very revealing especially for their quiet little coastal town he was buying short cocktail dresses that showed off a woman's legs and pieces that were considered provocative but he had Kenai for what younger women wanted soon the women in the town began flocking to the boutique his risky choices had paid off and with that Gianni Versace had started his first successful business [Music] while Gianni was stocking his Boutique with his newest Fashions his mother was also teaching him how to make dresses so he could turn his own original design ideas into reality they would go on trips to clothing manufacturers and Gianni always carried his Sketchbook with him this is where he met the owners of a knitwear brand called Florentine flowers once they saw their designs in his Sketchbook they asked him to work with them in Tuscany when he was just 25 years old it was an exciting new opportunity for Gianni so he agreed to move to Tuscany and within a few months his new bosses were so impressed by the success of his first collection that they bought him a brand new Volkswagen convertible at 26 he decided that it was time to explore the even bigger Fashion World of Milan he began freelancing by designing pieces for Brands like Callahan Jenny complice and Mario Valentino it was clear to everyone that Gianni was talented and that his work was worth an incredible amount of money for example after working to revamp Jenny's outdated fashion line their clothing sales tripled from 2 million dollars to six million dollars per year for six years Gianni spent time freelancing and networking with people in the Milan fashion industry and he was able to get so many contracts that he made well into six figures per year finally he decided that it was time to show the world who he was he gathered his portfolio of pieces and secured an exhibit at a famous art museum in Milan he was a little nervous about this but he had no need to be people left his style so much that he began receiving requests from clients who wanted him to make dresses for them this was the first time he worked directly with customers rather than designing for someone else's brand but it wasn't until 1978 when he was 32 that he finally opened his own fashion line now launching a new fashion brand isn't cheap but Gianni secured Financial backing from a wealthy Italian family who believed in his work all of his networking in the fashion industry was really paying off literally Gianni really valued family and appointed his brother Santo as CEO and his sister Donatella as vice president both of them helped him launch the company Gianni Versace Spa with the funding he'd received he was able to open Boutique in one of the best locations for fashion in Milan when he first opened the shop there was just one single rack of dresses in the store but he was so talented with what he showed in the window it was enough to have women coming into the shop and with that the Versace brand was at the very beginning of its journey to making everyone in his family multi-millionaires before we get to the next chapter I want to tell you about today's video sponsor Kudos a smartwallet browser extension that helps the average user save over 750 dollars per year whenever you come to buy something Kudos picks the card that maximizes credit card rewards and hidden card benefits like purchase protection and travel insurance the extension works with either Chrome desktop or Safari mobile you just select which card you have from the 3 000 cards Kudos supports no card number required and then Kudos helps you maximize your rewards on every purchase and for users who do store their card numbers with Kudos it saves you Time by autofilling your details at checkout and they use the same secure encryption level used by all major Banks Kudos also has a card Explorer tool that lets you discover new cards that fill in gaps in your wallet based on how you spend and as a special Black Friday bonus they're giving a 10 Amazon gift card to us users who sign up and make their first autofill purchase using Kudos before the 5th of December using my link in the description just enter magnates underscore BF during onboarding and when you make your first autofill purchase using Kudos a 10 Amazon gift card will be sent to their email address you sign up with within 72 hours so just click the link below to get started now [Music] Gianni's sister Donatella moved to Milan in order to help him run the business but after a while she grew bored with her duties as vice president she was still a very young woman in her 20s trying to figure out what she wanted to do with her life eventually she decided she wanted to be a fashion designer as well so Gianni began a new line called versus just so that Donatella could sell her designs in the Versace store Gianni was also known for using Innovative materials for his clothing he would go as far as to use aluminum mesh leather rubber lace and just about anything to make his clothing this mix of materials was very uncommon and really made him stand out from the crowd Gianni versace's designs were also known for being revealing he received a lot of criticism from both the media and the fashion Community there was a saying that when Armani dresses the wife of Versace dresses the mistress but he ignored these criticisms he knew what his customers wanted and that was to show off their curves and be proud of their bodies rather than hiding them away eventually the company became so successful that Gianni began opening new store locations instead of focusing only on the Western World Journey wanted to take Versace Global in 1979 he opened his first store in China at the time other fashion houses were ignoring much of the Asian market but bringing Versace to China so early would pay off in a very big way he was way ahead of the competition of Versace became one of the top brands throughout the 1980s he began opening stores across the United States in the 90s launched multiple new fashion lines which were a huge success besides being a brilliant fashion designer Gianni was great at marketing and understood the power of getting celebrities to wear his clothes and be associated with the brand so he used his connections to make it happen he became known for dressing many celebrities like Elton John Michael Jackson Cher Madonna and Princess Diana after his clothes were photographed and put in Gossip magazines the demand for Versace skyrocketed in the 1980s and 90s Gianni Versace began hiring models that he would use again and again in his Runway shows big names like Naomi Campbell and Cindy Crawford all worked for Versace in 1992 Versace stepped the controversy up a notch and launched a collection called Miss s m models were walking down the runway and leather harnesses and that same year Donatello wore a bondage dress to the Met Gala which certainly got a lot of people talking however this was revolutionized in the fashion industry in a big way showing that women weren't afraid to show some skin Gianni was quoted saying we have to really break barriers every day fashion to me is born and dies every day then in 1994 an actress named Elizabeth Hurley was a plus one for Hugh Grant to the movie premiere of Four Weddings and a funeral she wore the safety pin Versace dress to the premiere and the media went wild just by wearing this dress Elizabeth's career took off in fact the dress is so famous it has its own Wikipedia page and as time went on Versace became more of a Lifestyle brand they sold everything from sheets to plates and pillowcases Gianni wanted to make products that were affordable to anyone not just the Rich and Famous even if someone in the middle class couldn't afford a Versace gown it would still be possible to buy perfume or a pair of sunglasses this would turn out to be a great move because it helped spread the popularity of the brand throughout the whole Wells during his massive rise in wealth and fame Gianni was Keeping a Secret I've never said it I'm gay he was gay and was in love with a man named Antonio D'Amico however the family wanted to keep his sexuality a secret because they were afraid it would hurt the company's reputation so for years he hid who he truly was from the public in 1992 Gianni bought a mansion together with Antonio in the South Beach neighborhood of Miami and whilst living in Miami Gianni would frequent the local gay nightclubs but he wouldn't drink or dance with the crowd he was there to get inspired because he wanted to see what people were wearing even though he was rich and famous he was still very humble and would regularly chat with the locals however tragedy struck in 1993 when Gianni Versace was diagnosed with cancer in his inner ear later it was revealed that he was also HIV positive Gianni began writing his last will and testament in case he passed away from his illnesses but he had no idea that he would be murdered long before his illnesses could take his life on July 15 1997 Gianni was on a morning walk outside of his Miami home he got a cup of coffee and copies a Vogue on the New Yorker a 27 year old man named Andrew cunnan was waiting for him he pulled out a gun and shot Gianni execution style as he fell onto his front steps by sheer coincidence the bullet went through the body and also shot a nearby Dove when the police arrived they saw the dead Dove near his body and assumed it was some sort of message left by the mafia residents of South Beach were devastated and they created a memorial on the steps where he was killed over 2 000 people attended Gianni versace's funeral including dozens of celebrities and it was televised throughout the world his murderer Andrew Kanan was a serial killer wanted in multiple States and he was being hunted by the FBI he was even on an episode of America's Most Wanted just eight days after killing Gianni Versace Andrew was found dead in a Boathouse he decided it was better to commit suicide than going to jail in 2018 FX released a TV series called American Crime Story the Assassin nation of Gianni Versace which speculates that Andrew was obsessed with Versace and tried to manipulate his way into Gianni's life before killing him reportedly Andrew was gay and worked as an escort for older men so the show speculates that he may have stopped Gianni and tried to proposition him for work before killing him however investigators on the case found no proof that Andrew ever spoke to Gianni Versace before killing him and so Andrew's true motives remain a mystery [Music] at the time of his death the Versace brand was worth 807 million dollars in his will Gianni left 20 of the company to his sister Donatella who continued to serve as the artistic and creative director after his death his brother Santo received 30 and went on to become the new chairman but surprisingly the remaining 50 of the company went to Gianni's niece Allegra Versace back he loved his niece like a daughter calling her his little princess she was only 11 years old at the time of his death so this set her up for life when Allegra was 18 years old she was able to access her inheritance of 800 million dollars and joined the Versace board however she didn't exactly want to become the new face of the Versace brand she hated being in the spotlight and valued her privacy so didn't become too involved in the family business after Gianni was shot several companies approached the family offering them millions of dollars to take over the Versace brand they were told things like none of your family will ever have to work again but they held on to the company and wanted to continue Gianni's Legacy see on their own Donatella said my brother would not have wanted me to sell a single office chair to him the company was family and you don't sell family so the Versace family continued to run the brand on their own and defied all of the odds that were against them in fact Versace was actually involved in a very surprising invention in the year 2000 Donatello designed a dress that was worn by Jennifer Lopez to the Grammy Awards it was a green jungle print dress and everyone was talking about it it became so famous that it was the number one search term on Google the only problem was that back in 2000 Google only had Tech search former Google CEO Eric Schmidt said that there was such a high volume of searches for this jungle print Versace dress it made the Google team realize the urgent need for an image search instead of just text so it was actually donatella's dress design that prompted Google to build an image search function to accommodate the demand and fun fact it was Susan majiski who's now the CEO of YouTube who was tasked with leading the development of Google Images all because of this Versace dress however for Donatella despite their business success dealing with the grief of losing Gianni wasn't easy she really struggled after her brother's death and later admitted she developed a Coke addiction throughout much of her time working at Versace she was going in and out of her Daze it didn't help that the media was saying she was just a figurehead to the brand belittling the work she was actually doing as a designer no one believed in her ability to run Versace after Gianni's death this was destroying her self-confidence even more and led her to do even more drugs to feel better it was a vicious cycle Allegra's 18th birthday party Donatella had a full-on breakdown she became incoherent and her friends and family were scared for her Elton John was a family friend and he staged an intervention and thankfully she agreed to go to rehab [Music] in 2014 the business was not doing as well as it once had and sales were falling the Versace family decided it was finally time to seek outside help to move the brand forward they initially sold 20 of the company to a private Equity Firm called the Blackstone Group and also hired a new CEO Jonathan Aykroyd Jonathan helped Revitalize versace's brand and the business made a comeback becoming more popular with a younger audience once again however as time went on it became clear that the next generation of the Versace family wasn't going to continue running the business Santo and Donatella wanted to keep their brother's brand alive long after they were gone so it decided it was best to finally sell the company in 2018 Capri Holdings bought the Versace brand for 2.12 billion dollars Donna and Santo both got to keep their jobs at the company where they continued to work to this day and part of the deal also included stocking Capri Holdings so the Versace family received shares that amounted to 176 million dollars what started as a humble family-owned dress shop in Italy became a multi-billion dollar fashion brand the name Versace will live on long after the family is gone and it continues to be one of the top fashion brands to this day however if you want to see an even crazier Underdog business success story you're definitely going to want to watch the story of Nike I think you're really gonna enjoy this one just click the thumbnail here and I'll see you there in a second

Channel: MagnatesMedia

Views: 870,675

Keywords: Business, Wealth, Companies, Company, Big Business, Big brand, Brands, marketing, businesses, business success, successful entrepreneurs, entrepreneur success stories, entrepreneur success story, true crime business, business true crime, business crime, true crime, true crime documentary, documentary, business movie, business story, business documentaries, movie, luxury fashion brand, richest fashion brands, luxury fashion, Versace, Versace story, Versace history, Gianni Versace

Id: 5U11gCja26A

Length: 17min 4sec (1024 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 16 2022