“Only Versace Did It”: The Story of Courtney Love & Her Snow White Gown.
Courtney at the Academy Awards.
March 24, 1997 in Los Angeles.
Wearing Atelier Versace (haute couture) Spring Summer 1997.
Have you ever wanted to know the backstory of this Versace gown, her ‘Vogue’ makeover and how Courtney ended up going from thrift store to fashion darling, accepting a Golden Globe, presenting at the Oscars AND winning a VH1 fashion award, all within the span of one year — 1997.
Read on for the deep dive.
As a rebellious 16 year old in 1980, attending the Oscars was a long-cherished dream of Courtney’s.
“I thought about going [to the Oscars] with long green hair and green fake fur and a green Bob Mackie gown — it was all based on Cher” she confided to her makeup artist, Kevyn Aucoin, who’d do her make-up for the 1997 Oscars.
Let’s take it back to the beginning of Courtney’s ‘makeover’.
In late 1996, The People vs Larry Flynt premiered in New York City on December 6.
Within days, due to her excellent performance as Larry’s Flynt’s wife, Althea Flynt, Courtney was touted by reliable publications, such as Variety, as a potential nominee for best actress at the upcoming 1997 Oscars.
This tip was 5 months before the official Oscars nominee list would even be released.
Ahead of the Oscars in January and February of 1997, Courtney would go on a whirlwind PR trip of premiers, photo calls, promo events and interviews to promote the PVLF. It would be a real chance for her to woo Oscar voters too.
Courtney’s PR agent, Pat Kingsley, would coach her to meet with the press. Pat’s clients include Tom Cruise, Jodie Foster and Richard Gere. Courtney had hired Pat after Kurt passed away.
Every time Courtney would accidentally say ‘shit’ on the press tour, Courtney would cup her hands over her mouth and request that the interviewer excise it — “In print it always makes you look kind of dumb and raunchy” she said.
During this press tour, Courtney’s stylist at the time — Wendy Schecter (who took her from her 1995 thrift store vibe to the dizzying heights of her 1997 Hollywood ‘makeover’) — would scour Manhattan showrooms for something for Courtney to wear to the Oscars.
According to the book Made For Each Other: Fashion and the Academy Awards by Bronwyn Cosgrave, it was well known at the time that no New York PR agency was overly keen to loan any pieces to Courtney. They thought it was too risky.
Wendy managed to somehow convince Prada to loan two dresses to Courtney: a satin pewter gown and a slim black sixties inspired shift dress.
The borrowed Prada look was so sleek on Courtney, that Miuccia Prada sent her another dress to keep. The dresses started flowing from there including Dolce & Gabbana and Givenchy who also lent her dresses. Things were looking up for Courtney.
In early 1997, Courtney made her debut in the fashion pages of the world’s most famous fashion magazine — the January issue of Vogue and Vogue UK.
The photoshoot for Vogue Italia took place around January 1997, wearing a mix of Versace, Alberta Feretti, Valentino and Dolce & Gabbana. Shot by Steven Meisel, this was the first (but not last) time she would work with famed make-up artist Kevyn Aucoin.
It was at this point that Anna Wintour declared that Vogue had given Courtney ‘the Vogue makeover.’
It was at this Vogue ‘makeover’ shoot that Courtney met with famous hairstylist Garren and he cut and coloured her short hair into a sleek platinum bob.
She also had an 8 page spread in Vogue, captured by Steven Meisel and make-up by Kevyn Aucoin.
By early February 1997, Courtney had received her official invitation to attend the Oscars, however (quelle horreur!) she was invited to attend as a presenter for best makeup, and not as an award nominee.
Disheartened, she admitted to those close to her she “didn’t have much of a body of work for them to judge me on”.
However, not to let it get the best of her, during the 1997 Berlin Film Festival on February 13, Courtney had told reporters “The Oscars isn’t about who wins anyway, it’s about who wears the best dress!”
Despite relying on Wendy for the entirety of her Hollywood makeover, Courtney and Wendy fell out over some Valentino dresses which accidentally got shipped to Berlin instead of Paris.
The dresses eventually arrived in Berlin promptly after Courtney’s manager at the time screamed down the phone at Valentino’s press officer that “Courtney will never wear Valentino again if these dresses don’t arrive! Where are the fucking dresses!”
Around this time, Courtney and Sharon Stone struck up a relationship. Sharon had told Courtney that Faye Dunaway had given her the 1:1 introduction to Hollywood when Sharon was first starting out as an actress, so Sharon wanted to pay it forward to Courtney:
“I spent the day at her house, I’m not going to gossip but I’ll tell you, it was a real education about the Hollywood system. She’s practically a rock star but she doesn’t even know it! She would say to me ‘Don’t be cool. Fuck that. You’re a great actress. Stand up straight! Be proud of your work! Be a movie star’. When Sharon Stone is offering you movie star lessons? You take them.”
Meanwhile, Courtney was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Actress and didn’t really want to attend. Sharon told her to go, why wouldn’t she want to wear a nice dress to an event?
Sharon lent Courtney a midnight blue v-neck Valentino dress for the Golden Globes in January of 1997. Pared with Harry Winston diamonds and a Chanel manicure, Courtney had been established as a celebrity within the Valentino family.
“This is very different from rock n’ roll. The grooming is much more high-end.” — Courtney.
After the Berlin mess up in February (which came down to miscommunication), Courtney replaced Wendy with costume designer and part time stylist Arianne Phillips. Courtney had met Arianne on the set of The People vs Larry Flynt in Memphis in 1996, and on the side, with Arianne, Courtney privately commissioned Valentino to create her an Oscars dress.
[Funny story but it was Courtney who introduced Arianne to Madonna on the set of a Rolling Stone shoot in late 1997. At the time, Arianna was still Courtney’s unofficial stylist. Through this introduction, Arianne ended up collaborating with Madonna for over two decades, working on the costume designs for six of her world tours and around 25 of her music videos.]
While Courtney’s couture dress was getting made at Valentino in Rome, Sharon Stone suggested Courtney check out Halston in West Hollywood. From Halston, Courtney selected a 70s inspired V-neck matte black jersey dress which she also added to her ‘potential Oscars dresses’ pile.
Over at the Versace showroom on Madison Avenue in New York in February, despite not being Courtney’s official stylist anymore, Wendy Schecter discovered what she considered a “one in a million” dress — a floor length, bias cut shimmering white, sleeveless satin gown with “tendrils floating down the back like angel wings”. Schecter saw it as a elegant take on the “tacky” secondhand satin Courtney wore to the Vanity Fair Oscar’s party in 1995.
This particular snow white gown that Wendy had discovered was from Atelier Versace — a sub brand of Versace for their haute couture line.
The dress first appeared on the runway on Shalom Harlow in January 1997 at the Paris Ritz Atelier Versace show and then in print in Vogue US, April 1997 in a spread titled ‘Couture Clash’
By early March 1997, Wendy put a rush order on the white Versace gown for Courtney. She then packed it in a duffel bag and boarded a flight from New York to LA for Oscars week.
Ten days before the Oscars, Wendy received a phone call from Courtney’s team, Courtney had second thoughts about presenting in Valentino.
Wendy simply said no problems — “I have the perfect dress for Courtney.”
When she arrived at Courtney’s place, there was already a team of Versace people circling — publicists and the like. They brought a whole stack of Versace dresses — and Courtney wouldn’t be deciding on which one she’d wear until the morning of the Oscars.
The weekend of the Oscars was chaos — recalled a witness within the group, “One minute you’d see a publicist running through the Four Seasons screaming ‘She’s wearing Valentino’ and the next minute someone would be screaming ‘She’s wearing Versace!’
By noon on Oscars day, Courtney had committed to the Versace gown.
The gown was locked in. Wendy, now unofficially/officially working with Courtney again, ran down to Neiman Marcus in Beverly Hills to find shoes for Courtney—it was there she purchased ash coloured satin Manolo Blahniks.
Courtney worked with some Buddhist monks close to her on what colours to wear “I spent about 80 hours with them” Courtney said.
They advised her to incorporate gold into her 1997 Oscars ensemble — however Courtney, being her own person, in addition to the white Versace gown, selected a platinum and diamond necklace from Martin Katz. The lariat necklace was selected from the Beverly Hills jeweler by Arianne Phillips.
“The necklace was sassy and she’s sassy — she loved it.”
Martin Katz on Courtney Love.
At midday her make-up was finished and by 3pm she was in a limo on her way to the Shrine Auditorium for the 1997 Academy Awards.
On the red carpet that day, Courtney was heralded as the modern day Jean Harlow.
Alongside her at the Oscars was Wendy O’Connor (Kurt’s mother), Kim Cobain (Kurt’s sister) and her then partner and co-star in the PVLF, Edward Norton.
Courtney’s make-up at the Oscars was done by Kevyn Aucoin — Courtney had flown him out specifically for the Oscars however she ended up having to share him with Nicole Kidman (Nicole also made headlines wearing chartreuse John Galliano for Christian Dior couture, she was rumoured to have been paid $2m to wear it to the event. When Joan Rivers saw it, she remarked, “I hate that color!” and made retching sounds in Kidman’s direction.)
[Not so fun fact, Alan B. Schwartz, designer of the formalwear line ABS, created a $250 version of both Courtney’s and Nicole’s couture dresses to sell at Macy’s.]
I had to share him with Nicole Kidman. All of a sudden, Kevyn had to do her sisters, Tom Cruise’s mother, Tom Cruise’s sister… He was so apologetic.
When Kevyn did my make-up that day, he was done by noon, and he gave me a teeny-weeny little sponge with some powder on it, and I was done.
I went to the Academy Awards around 3pm,I was nervous and all that stuff but that shit stayed on.
The bill came for his flight, and I paid for it, I’m that big of a sucker. I should have fought with her (Kidman).” (Nylon, 2010)
During a red carpet interview at the Oscars, she sent a personal apology to Valentino:
“I just want to apologise to Mr. Valentino. He’s made me so many beautiful clothes but in the end, Versace was so accommodating.”
Read between the lines what you will but Courtney spoke candidly of the Valentino vs Versace escapade in the November 1997 issue of Us magazine, she elaborated very succinctly on the reason she went with Versace:
Courtney: Designers draw for a model who’s 7 feet, and even Barbie isn’t that tall. For the Academy Awards, I went to all the designers and said, sketch me something that looks like a woman, 5 or 6 feet high. I want to see what the dress is going to look like on someone who’s got a body that exists on Earth, not Mars. Because that body doesn’t exist. It’s a trap, and an evil evil mindfuck for women. I did not want to participate in it. I said, if we’re going to play a game, let’s play together.
Interviewer: And did they do it?
Courtney: Only Versace did it.
—
A month after Courtney appeared at the Oscars, she graced the pages of the April issue of Vogue UK. The spread titled “Love Story” was shot by Photographer Steven Meisel with make-up, again by Kevyn Aucoin.
Six months later, Courtney was a complete fashion darling. She was the cover star of Harpers Bazaar (who would typically only use models on their covers)— again working with close friend Kevyn Aucoin for makeup and photographer Patrick Demarchelier.
By September that year, Courtney was heralded as “the new American style”.
On April 6 1998, Courtney’s mindblowing Versace campaign was published in New York magazine to promote the Versace Spring Summer 1998 collection. The photos were also used in a Versace catalogue entitled ‘Love & Other Temptations’.
Next she was photographed by famed photographer Bruce Weber for the Versace Mens Couture SS 1998 collection. She wore robes, men’s shoes, combat boots, mens briefs and white collared shirts. A step away from her get up the early 90s of slips and tiaras.
She was a Versace vision.
She wore a purple Versace dress to the vh1 Fashion Awards on October 24, 1997.
Courtney was in attendance to accept the award for “Best Female Personal Style” in NYC (beating Kate Moss, Cameron Diaz, and Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy!), presented by Bono from U2.
In her acceptance speech, she gives thanks to the people that helped her in the fashion industry, and also spoke up against homophobia in society:
This year I had a wonderful and exhilarating time with fashion and with style and I always thought that I was pretty fabulous before but… whatever. And I met some wonderful, great people in the fashion industry and I kinda wanna thank them cause they put me in drag and they helped me get this… Steven Meisel, Paul Cavaco, Kevyn Aucoin, Liz Tilberis — thankyou very much. And of course my fairy Godmother, who makes me feel luke Cinderella, Donnatella Versace. And I promised I would say ‘I love you’ and ‘goodnight’ to my daughter, Frances.
I feel that keeping gay people in the closet with our attitudes and our actions is cruel and it’s tacky and, most of all, it’s boring.
I think that We really need to respect each other and ourselves and respect who we are and what we are and not be afraid to be what we are whether we’re gay or straight or insane. Or Irish.
It’s 1997 and respecting each others sexuality is the coolest thing I can think of except for maybe legalising hemp and not wearing fur.
I love you Frances! Goodnight, Frances!”
This purple Versace dress is from the first collection by Donatella after her brother, Gianni, passed away. Courtney was also the face of this collection.
On October 10, 1998 She travelled to Milan where she attended the Gianni Versace collection during the Spring/Summer ’99 fashion show with bandmates Melissa Auf der Maur, Samantha Maloney and Eric Erlandson.
On October 6, 2000 Courtney again flew out to Milan (this time with little 8 year old Frances Bean in tow) for the 2001 Spring Summer Versace collection.
Two decades later, the snow white Versace dress still holds a place of honor on various lists of the all-time best Oscar looks.
In a statement in July of 1997, following Gianni Versace’s murder, Courtney said:
“I credit Donatella and Gianni with helping me make a transition to a new period in my life without ever compromising who I am.”
As of December 2022, Courtney’s soaking up the countryside in the UK somewhere. Far removed from the LA Versace lifestyle and she’s much healthier and happier for it.
She’s more of a Vivienne Westwood girl right now, anyway.
