The Truth About Alfredo Versace

The Truth about Alfredo Versace

My name is Alfredo Versace and I was born in the South of Italy. As a
matter of fact, half of the town was named Versace. That is because
my father's family had six siblings. My grandfather's family had
another five children so there were a lot of relations in the town I
was born, Bianconovo. My father came from one town over, Carmelo
Versace, which is about 5 kilometers , named Bovolino. Gianni
Versace's father was also born in Bovolino. My father and Gianni's
father were cousins and had the same grandfather. Gianni was born in
Bovolino too.

In 1952, after arriving from Italy, my father was involved in
producing artificial flowers which were used on hats and dresses.
Most evenings he would bring home a box of flowers and stems and wires
and we would assemble them after dinner. One of the stores that
bought these flowers was A & S, Abraham and Strauss. In the 50's that
was one of the leading department stores. My mother would take me
downtown Brooklyn where A&S was located and we would shop. If there
was an occasion my mother would buy me a suite from A & S and she
would point out the garments and hats with the flowers and she would
say: "This is one of the flowers you made". That would give me a
great sense of joy that I made something that other people would wear.
Later on my mother would do additional work by sewing piece work.
This entailed assembling garments for later sale. That is when I
discovered that I enjoyed producing products. From that point on I
decided that I was going to create objects that gave me pleasure.

When I was 20 years old, we opened up the first AV store on 4th
Avenue and Sackett Street in Brooklyn. The second store under the AV
Versace name was opened on Crescent Street and Liberty Avenue, also in
Brooklyn. That was back in the mid 60's. There we began to make
garments for private sale. My first seamstress was named Maria and
from that point on I

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