On 15 July 1997, on the steps of his villa in Miami, Gianni Versace was shot dead. He was 50 and ran a company valued at 1.4 billion dollars. Twenty-nine years later, his name still means what few fashion houses ever managed to hold on to - a boldness that doesn't apologise.

The story begins in Reggio di Calabria, in the south of Italy, in a boutique where his mother sewed. He designed his first dress at the age of nine. After studying in Milan and working for other brands, in 1978 he founded his own house together with his brother Santo, who ran the finances, and his sister Donatella, his muse. The debut collection - vivid, provocative, sensual - thrilled some and shocked others. And Versace made no effort to please the latter.

„I would rather have a vulgar, happy man than a refined, unhappy one", he used to say. That was his entire philosophy packed into a single sentence. He worked directly on the model, mixed masculine cuts with classical Greek motifs from his Calabrian roots, and brought in materials fashion had never known before - Oroton, the metal mesh that became the house's signature.

For his symbol he chose the Medusa - the Greek gorgon whose gaze turned people to stone. Not by accident. He wanted the same magnetism, the same impossibility of looking away, carried over into his creations.

The most famous moment came in 1994, when Elizabeth Hurley appeared at a film premiere in a black, figure-hugging dress whose side split was held together by just a few gold safety pins. That piece went down in history simply as „THE DRESS", and Hurley later admitted: „Versace made me famous overnight." Few designers understood so early just how much power a single image carries.

Versace understood the power of models before anyone else, too. Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista, Christy Turlington, Claudia Schiffer - he raised them from the runway to the status of global icons. His circle drew in Elton John, Madonna, Princess Diana. In Miami he turned the villa Casa Casuarina into his own version of opulence - mosaics, fountains, columns, marble.

Critics called him vulgar and excessive. It didn't touch him. „Our work should be able to make people dream", he said. Almost three decades after his death, it's hard to say he didn't succeed.