Gianni Versace was born and raised in the Southern Italian city of Reggio Calabria. He was one of three children of an appliance salesman and a seamstress. And while his family was not wealthy, they were devoted to giving their children every opportunity to succeed. Gianni was always interested in his mother's work and could often be found playing with scraps in her studio. After finishing his studies in architecture he returned to his mother's studio as an apprentice. It wasn't until 1972, when Gianni was offered a job designing in Milan that he left his hometown.
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| The port of Naples- all the docks on the right side of the map are used for commercial shipping. The largest shipping port in all of Europe. |
In Southern Italy something strange and amazing was happening around Gianni.
The port of Naples went into and incredible boom. Today it is the busiest seaport in the world. Almost all of the products coming out of China to Europe and the West touches Naples. And Naples and the rest of the Southern tip of Italy's 'boot' began to work on fashion counterfeits.
And because of this trade in European made goods from the largely Mafia owned/run shops was so profitable the government had no choice but to bow to their demands. It didn't take long until the government found itself pressured into "stop[ping] requiring permits, contracts, or proper working conditions...garages, stairwells, and storerooms were transformed into factories".*2No regulations, no administrative or economic planning. Shoes, clothes, and accessories were clandestinely forced onto the international market. The towns didn't boast of this precious production; the more silently, the more secretly the goods were manufactured, the more successful they were. For years this area produced the best in Italian fashion. And thus the best in the world.*1
It became a very scary place to have to do business. Things were run by a new, nuanced set of rules. The 'Ndrangheta and the Calabrian mafia had moved in to Naples, and they were offering a new prosperity to anyone in the area that wanted to join in their pursuits.
They began by extorting local families and businesses. Giving the option of either paying them now, or they will get it later by robbing your store, your house or kidnapping you for ransom. "Highly organized, with money laundering schemes operating through legitimate companies, the 'Ndrangheta mobsters started by collecting 'pizzo'- protection money- from virtually every business in Calabria, including the dress-making business run by Versace's mother."*3 this was the beginning of a curse on the house of Versace, one that would taint the family as "having connections to the mafia" for years. But it got worse very quickly, as soon as Gianni had a taste of success the 'Ndrangheta decided that "instead of simply continuing to bleed the Versace empire dry of protection money, they had much greater plans...to use his business to launder their 'dirty' drug money"*4, and put in charge of this new operations was Capo Franco Coco Trovato
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| Coco Trovato |
Trovato moved to Milan in the 1980's to be closer to Gianni and his Versace empire. Bother Versace and Trovato had similar interests: designer suits and clothes, fast cars, partying, and drugs. According to one former 'Ndrangheta informer "they were friends and they did business together. I can say with confidence that from 1983 to 1984 Versace worked with Trovato laundering money."*5
Trovato was a powerful and frightening man. He was one of the proponents and a large part of the bloody Secondigliano War. A street war between the 'Ndragheta and the Calabrian clans, that left over 200 people dead, and had the population fearing for their safety. Trovato was a brutal mob leader, and "was infamous for torturing those who betrayed him"*6. After the war calmed down slightly, Trovato was caught by police, tried and convicted of murder. He is still serving his life sentence, but refuses to say anything about what happened between Versace and himself, because under the mafia law of Omerta, to say anything at all could lead to his assassination.
Meanwhile on the docks of Naples,
Trovato was a powerful and frightening man. He was one of the proponents and a large part of the bloody Secondigliano War. A street war between the 'Ndragheta and the Calabrian clans, that left over 200 people dead, and had the population fearing for their safety. Trovato was a brutal mob leader, and "was infamous for torturing those who betrayed him"*6. After the war calmed down slightly, Trovato was caught by police, tried and convicted of murder. He is still serving his life sentence, but refuses to say anything about what happened between Versace and himself, because under the mafia law of Omerta, to say anything at all could lead to his assassination.
Meanwhile on the docks of Naples,
Not everyone has ended up in the quagmire of defeat. At least not yet. Some successful factories are still strong enough to compete with the Chinese...by delivering speed and quality-extremely high quality- they still hold the monopoly on beauty for top-level garments,*7
and brands- especially designer, high end merchandise "don't dare risk sending everything East, contracting out to Asia"*8. The negative publicity of sending all manufacturing to Asia could cause an uncomfortable public relations fiasco, like Nike had to overcome in the 1990’s. It is better to keep the work in Europe, where they can label the clothes legally "Made in Italy". But this is only possible because, "officially these factories don't exist, and neither do the employees. If the same work were done legally, prices would go up and there would be no more market"*9.
The system is complex, and relies on secrecy; only through Roberto Saviano's expose of the working of the Naples Mafioso can the truth be seen. According to his book:
The system is complex, and relies on secrecy; only through Roberto Saviano's expose of the working of the Naples Mafioso can the truth be seen. According to his book:
and even the failures don't totally fail because, "even the contractors who don't satisfy the requirements of the designer labels manage to find a buyer. They sell the garments to the clans to be put on the fake-goods market"*10b. And what was a 'real' fake anyway?The auctions the big Italian brands hold in this area are strange. No one wins the contract and no one loses. The game consists in entering or not entering the race. Someone throws out an offer, stating his time and price. If his conditions are accepted, he won't be the only winner, however. His offer is like a head start the others can try to follow. When the brokers accept a bid, the other contractors decide if they want in; whoever agrees gets the fabric. Its sent directly to the port of Naples, where the contractors pick it up. But only one of them will be paid: the one who delivers first, and with top-quality merchandise. The other players are free to keep the fabric, but they don't get a cent. The fashion houses make so much money that material isn't a loss worth considering. If a contractor takes advantage of the system to have free fabric but repeatedly fails to deliver, he's excluded from future auctions. In this way the brokers are guaranteed speed: if someone falls behind, someone else will take his place. There's no relief from the rhythms of high fashion...All of the runway fashions, all the glitz for the most elegant premieres, comes from here.*10a
The workforce in clan operations is highly skilled, with decades of experience under Italy's and Europe's most important designers. The same hands that once worked under the table for the big labels now work for the clans. Not only is the workmanship perfect, but the materials are exactly the same, either bought directly on the Chinese market or sent by the designer labels to the underground factories participating in the auctions. This means that the clothes made by the clans aren’t the typical counterfeit goods, cheap imitations, or copies passed off as the real thing, but rather a sort of true fake. All that is missing is the...official authorization of the mother house. But the clans usurp that authorization without bothering to ask any body's permission*13Even the 'real' designer clothes came out of an entire industry that was further fouled by corruption and vice. "Everything- salaries, production costs, even shipping- must be paid in advance by the manufacturers, so the clans [also] loans money to the factories in their territories."*14 the clan's use their money to prop up this legitimate business and in return they get the control, the access and a percentage of this laundered money back. While the workers get the short end of the stick, as we can see from one of the clandestine workers recalling the moment that shook his faith in the system:
On TV Angelina Jolie was treading the red carpet at the Oscars, dressed in a gorgeous garment. One of those custom-made outfits that Italian designers fall over each other to offer to the stars. An outfit that Pasquale had made in an underground factory in Arzano. All they'd said to him was "this one's going to America". Pasquale had worked on hundreds of outfits going to America, but that white suit was something else.*15
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| Angelina Jolie's famous white suit |
But the one thing the workers in Naples do have is an income. This is something that there was a drastic shortage of before the clan’s had taken over the port, had it renovated and drew businesses to the vast shipping lanes.
Is it really so hard to imagine a designer, a native Calabrian and a hugely successful businessman like Gianni Versace got caught up in the mafia corruption? The 'Ndrangheta and the Calabrian clans have been rumored to be in business with Versace since the early 1980’s. Versace has always been a shrewd businessman, looking for ways to increase profits in every aspect of his production chain.
Versace's rise to fashion super stardom was meteoric. After going solo in 1977, his fashion sense seemed never to miss the mark. He quickly built a reputation as "vividly committed to the hedonism of late 20th Century culture", and the pursuit of both profit and power. Versace's first collection in spring 1978 was heralded as an astounding success. The line brought Versace's brightly colored, fitted and sexy tailoring to the public psyche. The first show alone created a sales windfall of around 20 Billion lira ($11Million USD). Gianni worked tirelessly to establish himself as one of the design greats. A task that he achieved by combining thought provoking contrasts in materials and sexy yet asymmetrical female silhouettes, season after season. His collections focused on contrasts in material and design styles. He loved asymmetrical necklines, and practiced what he called "intentional imperfection". After winning design award after design award, he decided it was time to cash in on his success in the late 1980's and early 1990's. Versace created a less expensive and highly available ready to wear line. He also refocused the company on accessories and branding the famous Medusa head logo. He began licensing accessories, silk scarves, watches, perfumes, and anything else that could be sold with the Versace logo on it. By the mid 1990's Versace was everywhere.
Is it really so hard to imagine a designer, a native Calabrian and a hugely successful businessman like Gianni Versace got caught up in the mafia corruption? The 'Ndrangheta and the Calabrian clans have been rumored to be in business with Versace since the early 1980’s. Versace has always been a shrewd businessman, looking for ways to increase profits in every aspect of his production chain.
Versace's rise to fashion super stardom was meteoric. After going solo in 1977, his fashion sense seemed never to miss the mark. He quickly built a reputation as "vividly committed to the hedonism of late 20th Century culture", and the pursuit of both profit and power. Versace's first collection in spring 1978 was heralded as an astounding success. The line brought Versace's brightly colored, fitted and sexy tailoring to the public psyche. The first show alone created a sales windfall of around 20 Billion lira ($11Million USD). Gianni worked tirelessly to establish himself as one of the design greats. A task that he achieved by combining thought provoking contrasts in materials and sexy yet asymmetrical female silhouettes, season after season. His collections focused on contrasts in material and design styles. He loved asymmetrical necklines, and practiced what he called "intentional imperfection". After winning design award after design award, he decided it was time to cash in on his success in the late 1980's and early 1990's. Versace created a less expensive and highly available ready to wear line. He also refocused the company on accessories and branding the famous Medusa head logo. He began licensing accessories, silk scarves, watches, perfumes, and anything else that could be sold with the Versace logo on it. By the mid 1990's Versace was everywhere.
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| Versace with Carla Bruni and Naomi Campbell |
Gianni's lifestyle outside of work was well known, but kept pretty discrete. Gianni loved to party- he spent huge wads of cash enjoying what it could provide. He drank, did drugs and loved to do everything in excess. His homosexuality was also a very thinly veiled secret. He would go to discrete gay clubs and was known to chase the youngest and sexiest boys to take home with him. He has even been linked to numerous highly paid gay prostitutes. And despite all of these highly volatile aspects of the Versace brand, the company remained untouched by scandal.
Until 1997.
| Santo Versace, living in the shadow of his creative brother |
"In May 1997 Santo Versace [Gianni's brother and de-facto CFO] was found guilty of bribing tax officials."*16 He was investigated and the final charges were laid due to a huge investigation into Camorra mob activities along the Naples port. Santo was charged with importing and exporting massive amounts of material through the port without paying taxes, instead he would simply bribe the customs inspectors to look the other way. There was speculation that the taxes that were avoided could have been an under-paying on high end fabrics, and that the fabric was going to the clan run 'invisible' factories, but there is no definitive answer to why Santos was evading taxation.
The port of Naples handles 20 percent of the value of Italian Textile import from China, but more that 70 percent of the quantity. It's a bizarre thing, hard to understand, yet merchandise possesses a rare magic: it manages both to be and not to be, to arrive without ever reaching its destination, to cost the customer a great deal despite its poor quality, and to have little tax value in spite of being worth a huge amount. Textiles fall under quite a few product classifications, and a mere stroke of the pen on the shipping manifest can radically lower price and VAT.*17
Bribery of customs inspectors is still commonplace in Naples. But so too is association with the mafia clans, which is denied vehemently by the remaining Versace family. Despite mounting evidence against their frequent claims of innocence and denials of being involved with any Mafia members, past or present.
"Despite [Gianni's] improved health thanks to beating cancer, Versace was growing increasingly paranoid. At the same time, his seedy lifestyle of constant wild parties with rent boys, was taking a heavy mental toll."*18 Gianni found himself fearing that something bad was going to happen to him. Telling people close to him that he was in danger, but never explaining why, was only the start of his increasingly erratic behavior. According to Frank Monte, Versace's former body guard and private detective, Versace's friends and associates were concerned about the fashion moguls strange behavior. They were also worried about his claims that he was contemplating about going public about the mafia’s extortion and constant demands on him to launder larger and larger amounts of money for them.
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| Versace's Miami Beach Mansion, and scene of the crime. |
But none of that mattered anymore on July 15 1997. Just having learned his ear cancer was in remission and that a recent HIV test showed a negative result, in short his health was improving. The hot-tempered Italian fashion mogul was happier than he had been for a long time.
That morning he went on his usual trip to pick up the paper and grab his coffee at a local cafe, Gianni returned home to his Art Deco mansion located just off of Miami Beach. When, "a stranger in a white shirt and grey shorts approached- and gunned him down with two close-range shots to the head and neck...the killer then walked away calmly and climbed into a waiting car."*19 Also, "bizarrely, a dead turtle dove was found beside Versace's blood-spattered body, which some speculated could be a professional killer's calling card."*20 After the shooting there was rampant speculation about what happened, who the shooter was, and what the motive was.
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| Andrew Cunanan |
The police's main theory was that the cool, calm and well organized murder was perpetrated by Andrew Cunanan, a "27 year old 'high class' gay prostitute, who was allegedly seen running from the scene",*21 and that "the presence of the dead dove was...a freak coincidence: detectives claimed the bird was simply hit by a [stray] bullet fragment as [the bird] flew overhead at the exact moment Cunanan opened fire."*22 Also, conveniently, Andrew Cunanan was found dead, having committed suicide days after an official national manhunt for his capture began. So that ruled out any possibility of Cunanan having to tell his story to investigators, or provide testimony under oath in front of a trial.  |
| Andrew Cunanan decided to kill himself rather than face a trial. |
The police had a perfect patsy. For the police, the clues and the coincidences connecting Cunanan and Versace were too damning. Cunanan was known and already wanted in the slaying of another of his gay lovers- out of state, and was growing increasingly angry about being diagnosed with HIV. His anger turned towards former lovers and he went on a killing spree, hunting down those that could have infected him. Because of this the police investigation quickly narrowed in and didn't stray from Cunanan as the murderer.
The police ruled out the idea of a mafia assassination for one simple reason. Versace had never claimed, or been proven to be associated with the mafia. To the lead investigator on the case that was too much of a "mystery novel scenario" to be deemed credible.
The police ruled out the idea of a mafia assassination for one simple reason. Versace had never claimed, or been proven to be associated with the mafia. To the lead investigator on the case that was too much of a "mystery novel scenario" to be deemed credible.
And then this year, another Italian investigative journalist has come forward. Gianluigi Nuzzi has released his book, Metastasi. In which he speaks with two former 'high ranking' mob hit men, Giuseppe di Bella and Filippo Barecca. The two hit men have been called, 'the most important witnesses in history' and the judiciary and top anti-Mafia investigators say that their 'credibility is not open to discussion'. The two of them have come out swinging against their former employers, the 'Ndrangheta. The testimony that they have provided has imprisoned dozens of top-tier mob members from the clan. In the interviews Di Bella and Barecca talk about their roles in the 'Ndrangheta, the assassinations they performed and the internal structure and operations of the clans. It also touches on the crippling power that the clans wield over the southern 'toe' of Italy. But the book also has both of the killers-turned-informants separately telling the story of Versace's murder. They both claim that "Cunanan was framed for the murder-and that Versace was killed by the mafia."*23 the informants also claim that the dove was left behind intentionally and is in fact, the calling card of a well known mob assassin.
Inconsistent evidence, a seemingly unbalanced patsy, and police investigators searching for the easiest way to close the case without causing an international uproar, focused the case on finding a killer, instead of finding the truth.
Main sources/quotes come from:
*Roberto Saviano's Gomorrah. Picador, 2006.
*Gianluigi Nuzzi's Metastasi.
*Andrew Malone and Nick Pisa, Daily Mail. Was Gianni Versace murdered by the mob. 12/13/2010.*Somini Sengupta, New York Times. July 16th & 19th, 1997.
*Miami-Dade police reports. Dated between July 15th-August 10th 1997.
*http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/crime/versace-case-closed
*http://bitterqueen.typepad.com/friends_of_ours
*http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories
*http://www.fashionologie.com/Reports-Surface-Alleging
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