Fashion designer who was the boyfriend of Gianni Versace
ANTONIO D’AMICO, who has died aged 63, was a fashion designer, former model and the loyal long-term partner of the fashion designer Gianni Versace.
They met in 1982 at a first night of Richard Strauss’s
Josephslegende ballet, for which Versace had designed the costumes, at La Scala in Milan. Versace hired d’amico to work on costumes for other productions, and the following year they became lovers.
For 14 years, as the company Versace had built from one boutique in Milan in 1978 grew into an $807 million fashion empire, d’amico lived in his shadow, working on some of the designer’s collections but stuck with the label of “Gianni’s ragazzo [boyfriend]”.
The pair were regulars on the international social scene, and at Versace’s Moorish palace at Miami Beach, where they moved in 1992, they became famous for parties where A-lister guests would circulate amid faux Renaissance frescos of the two men in various states of undress.
They remained an item until the morning of July 15 1997 when Versace was gunned down on the steps of his home by Andrew Cunanan, a serial killer who preyed on gay men.
“I was in the bedroom, having breakfast,” d’amico recalled. “I heard shots outside. I looked out the window, and I saw that the gates were open, which was unusual. I ran outside and I found Gianni on the steps. I was the first to reach him, but he was no longer alive.”
Afterwards there were tales of orgies involving rent boys, while the miniseries
The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story (2018), in which d’amico was played by Ricky Martin, showed other men visiting the Versace mansion for sex.
Whatever the truth, the two men were clearly devoted to each other, and d’amico, who was not consulted on the series, was quoted as saying that it did not have a “trace of reality”. “We lived like a natural couple, there was never a problem,” he told The Guardian in 2017.
The Versace empire, however, was a family affair. Though d’amico worked closely with Gianni’s sister Donatella, their relations were cool. In 1999 Donatella said of d’amico that “I respected him as the boyfriend of my brother, but I never liked him as a person,” while d’amico was on record as saying that Donatella “lives as if she has to combat the whole world”. A year after Versace’s murder, he left the company.
D’amico was left a monthly pension for life of about €26,000 by Versace and the right to live in any of his homes in Italy and the US. However, Versace’s assets were owned by the family company – Donatella, his brother Santo and niece Allegra.
An agreement was drawn up under which d’amico received a fraction of the pension and a restricted right to live in the properties.
He did not fight it because Gianni’s death had sent him into a near-suicidal depression, in which, he explained to The Guardian, “it felt false to have expectations of life.”
But he eventually started designing again and, with the help of Elton John, he presented a collection under his own label in Milan in 1999. “I wouldn’t be doing this if Gianni was still alive,” he explained.
“My life wouldn’t have changed. I would have continued to share my life with him.”
Antonio d’amico was born on January 20 1959 in Mesagne, in Italy’s depressed Puglia region. His mother was a seamstress and Antonio began life sewing buttons on to shirts. He flirted with the idea of cooking for a living, gaining a chef ’s diploma, but gave it up for modelling.
After founding his own label, d’amico continued to work as a designer, his ranges including a denim line and a golfwear line.
In later life he lived quietly in the countryside of northern Italy with a new partner.
Antonio d’amico, born January 20 1959, died December 6 2022