Fashion Victim: The Killing of Gianni Versace

The suicide of Gianni Versace's killer, Andrew Cunanan, drew a premature veil over what lay behind the killing of the most controversial fashion designer of the late 20th Century. Versace had created from nothing a clothing and licensing empire worth an estimated $ 400m a year. Hollywood stars from Liz Hurley to Sylvester Stallone were enrolled at a price to endorse his clothing from the sidelines of his catwalks: opulent dresses that glided off silicon breasts, quilts and cushions fit for Nero's boudoir. Gianni's younger sister, the platinum blond Donatella spurred on his appetite for the look of the Sicilian prostitute and the porno-gay pretty boy. Together the two Versace's sold a Euro-trash rock-chick glamour to the international nouveaux riches. Their own lifestyle was hard to match. Outrageously opulent mansions in Lake Como and Miami, New York and Milan contributed to a fabricated image that spoke of an aristocratic family with Renaissance credentials, belying the modesty of the Versace background. Gianni was both Caesar and Tribune: a man above reach and yet within reach; an emperor so surrounded by fawning sycophants of the fashion monde that he would become deafened to the looks of envy that lay beyond the thunderous applause of the Paris catwalk.

Fashion Victim: the killing of Gianni Versace is the chilling and mesmerising story of the rise and fall of a fashion giant set against the equally extraordinary tale of the life of his nemesis, the 27 year old Andrew Cunanan. From the high-octane fashion circuits of Milan and Paris to the drug-ridden underworld of gay America, the film chronicles the trajectory that brought killer and victim together.