Remembering the Glamorous Success and Cold-Blooded Murder of Fashion Icon Gianni Versace

Gianni Versace's Early Years

Versace made his first dress at 9 years old and presented his first eponymous collection in 1978 in Milan at age 32.

Later, he recounted to PEOPLE how a fifth-grade teacher caught him sketching Italian stars like Sophia Loren in evening wear.

"My professor called my mother and said, 'Your son is a sex maniac,' " Versace recalled in 1986.

"My mother said, 'Professor, my son is not a maniac. He just loves fashion and clothes.' "

Gianni Versace's Family

Versace survived the suspicions of his fifth-grade teacher and in 1966, after earning a draftsman's degree, began working for his mother. Six years later he moved to Milan, where he worked as a stylist for other design firms and developed enough of a reputation to start his own line.

His family was always his priority. In 1978, he co-founded his eponymous fashion house with his brother, Santo, who ran the financial side of the business, while sister Donatella, his muse, served as a designer and vice president.

"I am a bit like Fellini," Gianni said in '86. "I like my family around me ... I am a typical Italian. I love the clan."

In 1989 he launched Atelier Versace, his first couture collection, further cementing himself as a risk-taking designer who eschewed fashion rules. Instead he was inspired by Hollywood, art, architecture, music and the current culture, and he walked a tightrope between vulgarity and chic, opulence and camp.

Gianni Versace's Fashion Friends

Though popularly perceived as the anti-Giorgio Armani, exuberant and brash where his Milanese rival was cool and classic, Gianni seemed to revel in confounding expectations.

"Listen, I prefer a happy vulgar person to an unhappy chic person," he reportedly said in 1993, when he was still basking in the notoriety of his "bondage dresses" — shrink-wrap-tight sheaths strapped with black leather that could have been lifted from a dominatrix's closet.

"If you're unhappy and you don't have a positive attitude," he said, "what good is being chic?"

Gianni was a gifted marketer of his own designs, using celebrities (including the breakthrough supermodels of the day, such as Naomi Campbell) to draw attention to his brand.

Well-known fashion faces such as Vogue editor Anna Wintour shared the front row with celebrities including Lisa Marie Presley and Madonna and even controversial figures such as Woody Allen and wife Soon-Yi Previn and Hugh Grant and Elizabeth Hurley.

Gianni Versace's Famous Designs

Though Gianni's daring, sexual designs faced some derision — labeled cartoonish and vulgar — their target market could not get enough. His brand grew stronger when he began clothing the stars of Miami Vice, both on-screen and off, in 1986.

During two decades at the epicenter of the design world, the 50-year-old Gianni, who liked to style himself as "half royalty and half rock and roll," became known for a mischievous attitude almost as provocative as his cutting-edge clothes.

His vast celebrity clientele ranged from Princess Diana to the late rapper Tupac Shakur. In 1994 he tarted up Elizabeth Hurley in "that dress," a revealing black crepe number that appeared held together by little more than safety pins and a prayer. On the other hand, he stunningly remade Courtney Love's grunge-princess image with the Harlowesque satin column she wore to the 1997 Oscars.

Gianni Versace's Shocking Death

On July 15, 1997, Gianni was spending time at his palatial 1930s Miami villa, Casa Casuarina, after unveiling a new couture collection in Paris. He was opening the gates of the palazzo after taking a stroll to a nearby cafe when he encountered serial killer Andrew Cunanan, who twice fired on him before he fled, leaving Gianni for dead on his front steps.

The shooting was "quick," says crime scene investigations technician Berta Valdez, who helped process the original scene. "Almost execution-style. One, two shots, and he was killed almost instantly."

Already one of the FBI's 10 most-wanted fugitives after killing four men in a cross-country murder spree, Cunanan had traveled south to Miami, where he shot the designer.

Friend and model Jaime Alberto Cardona was one of the first on the scene that July morning, and shared his confusion with PEOPLE afterward.

"Someone has destroyed in a second what has taken him 50 years to build, not only in Miami Beach but his family, his empire," he said. "How could anyone have done that to this man?"

Gianni Versace's Murderer

Twenty-six years after Gianni's death, it is still unclear why the 27-year-old Cunanan, a hustler, targeted him — or if the two ever even met.

Experts told PEOPLE in 2017 it's also still not clear what drove Cunanan to travel across the country, killing people he knew and others he did not. "Investigators really didn't have what they felt was a concrete motive," said John Kelly, a criminal profiler and serial killer expert.

The slayings began in Minneapolis in late April 1997, when Cunanan murdered close friend Jeffrey Trail, a 28-year-old former U.S. Naval Officer, with a claw hammer, before shooting 33-year-old architect David Madson, an ex-lover, with a gun belonging to Trail.

More than a week later, Cunanan tortured and killed 72-year-old Chicago real estate magnate Lee Miglin, whose exact relationship to Cunanan, if any, is unknown.

Cunanan then traveled to an out-of-the-way cemetery in Pennsville, New Jersey, where he shot caretaker William Reese, 45, before stealing Reese's truck for the drive to Miami, where he shot the high-profile Gianni.

While experts say there is no clear motive, Kelly told PEOPLE that Cunanan "grew up feeling powerless and being kind of out of control."

Gianni Versace's Case Is Closed

Already the subject of a nationwide manhunt, Cunanan remained in hiding until he shot Gianni, after which he was pursued even more intently.

He died by suicide a few days later, on a Miami houseboat, as authorities closed in.

"Suicide is the ultimate act of control and power," Kelly said. "Ending his own life was the icing on the cake. He accomplished what he wanted to accomplish."

"I think he [Cunanan] was looking for fame," Kelly said. "His goal was to kill a famous man. He did, and he became infamous."

Gianni Versace Is Laid to Rest

In the wake of Gianni's murder, his family and friends mourned his loss, with luminaries such as Princess Diana and Elton John at his star-studded funeral.

A family friend told PEOPLE in 2017 that Gianni's relatives were "still in pieces" long after the death of the man who was known not just for his talent.

"It took several years for the pieces to settle and for the family to deal with the reality of what had happened — both personally and professionally," the friend said.

After Gianni's death, Casa Casuarina (now a hotel) "was a place of mourning," the property's general manager, Chauncey Copeland, tells PEOPLE. "It was a daily parade of people putting flowers where he got shot, which was on the right side of the main stairwell into the mansion just outside the gates."

Gianni Versace's Legacy

Gianni's family didn't just lose a loved one — they lost the head of their empire.

"They were an exceptionally close family, particularly Donatella and Gianni," the family friend said, "and … the loss of someone who was the undisputed leader, the undisputed vision, the undisputed creative force and eccentric leader of this incredibly passionate and emotional family, there was extraordinary pain."

Donatella became the company's chief creative voice as her daughter, Allegra, inherited a 50 percent stake in the firm. Brother Santo continued as CEO.

"She [Donatella] had to hold up this temple," Versace friend Hal Rubenstein told PEOPLE in 2017. "It was a lot. It was an awful lot."

Less than six months after Gianni died, Donatella debuted her first collection as chief designer, at Milan Fashion Week.

Even so, it was a struggle. "I miss my brother very much," Donatella reportedly said at the time. "I wanted to run away, thinking about coming out here without him."

Today, Casa Casuarina's Chauncey Copeland says, the Versace mansion is the third-most photographed residence in the U.S. "People still see it as a famous place harking back to Gianni Versace, more celebrating his life than his death."

'The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story'

The Versace murder case was featured on the 2018 season of Ryan Murphy's FX anthology drama American Crime Story,starring Darren Criss, Penelope Cruz, Ricky Martin and Edgar Ramírezas Gianni.

As the series gained buzz (and accolades), those who knew Gianni were focused on celebrating what was best about him: his intelligence and what Rubenstein termed his "creative genius and his absolute joy about being alive."

"He [Gianni] has a legacy that's still vibrant," Rubenstein said. "And I think that's the true test of somebody's greatness and I think that's what the family has done."

With reporting by Adam Carlson, Pam Lambert, Liz McNeil, Michael Neill and Mackenzie Schmidt