Gianni Versace opened the Versace Atelier, Milan, in 1989, followed by showing his first Atelier collection in 1990. Thoughout his career Gianni Versace's designs always expressed an intense sexuality, an exuberance, and often audacious approch to the female form, celebrating its beauty through his sophisticated and elegant approach to hugging the body with technical perfection in his formfitting designs brilliantly employing a bias cut or asymmetrical drape. On July 23, 1997 Gianni Versace was gunned down outside his South Beach home, in Miami Beach, Florida. The house of Versace remains a powerful fashion forse with Donatella Versace now the chief designer continuing in the tradition which her brother had forged, while infusing her own intensely unique approach.