The luxury Italian brand Versace is known throughout the world for making extremely high-quality fashion goods that are typically extraordinarily large amounts of money, I mean we are talking like $800 dollars for a t-shirt expensive. The thing is, Versace can charge that much for their products because people will pay that much. Their name brand is synonymous with luxury and wealth, and their products are not only fashion statements, but also status symbols. Their products are marked by the interesting Versace logo, a head of a woman that appears to be wearing some sort of headdress, but what is the origin behind this logo? Let’s take a look.
Gianni Versace Designs The Logo
Versace is a relatively young fashion company when it got its start back in 1978. Gianni Versace had an interest with fashion at a young age, taking after his mother who was a dressmaker. He grew up with fashion and eventually opened up his own clothing store that evolved into the global brand that it is today. Now when getting down to choosing a logo, Gianni drew from his interests. Growing up in Italy he was heavily influenced by ancient Greco/Roman art and history, it was from there that he got the idea for his logo.
Why Is The Versace Logo Medusa?
The Versace logo is actually the head of the ancient Greek mythological being known as Medusa. The origin story goes that Medusa was an extremely beautiful women who seduced Poseidon, causing him to rape her. The wife of Poseidon, Athena, found out the two were intimate and she was not too happy. Instead of punishing her husband, she put a curse on Medusa. Athena turned Medusa’s beautiful hair into many living snakes, and made her face horribly ugly and horrifying. Her face was so disfigured that any person to look her directly in the eyes would turn instantly into stone. She was now a monster.
Now initially it seems strange that a fashion company would base their logo off a person who was so ugly that they would turn people to stone. However it makes sense in some regards. Versace wanted to pick a clever logo, one people would remember, and he did a great job of that. He chose Medusa not only due to his interest in ancient Greek and Roman mythology, but because like Medusa, Versace’s products would be so striking that they would stop onlookers where they stood, almost if they had turned to stone. It is actually quite clever when you think about it, and it makes for a great logo.
What Is The Versace Logo Font?
While the Versace logo font is a custom typography, Radiant RR Bold has a very similar typography.