Vintage Versace in 5 Pieces, by William Vintage

Fashion is having a full-blown Gianni Versace moment - from Donatella's supermodel reunion during her Milan Fashion Week tribute to her brother, to a huge sale of Versace vintage pieces hitting FarFetch this week. Sale curator William Vintage explains the secrets behind the Gianni magic in our exclusive video...

Seeing The Fabulous Five (that's Cindy, Claudia, Helena, Carla and Naomi) slinking down the Versace catwalk, the lights of a thousand camera phones reflected in their silver chainmail dresses, was the Milan Fashion Week moment that nearly broke Instagram.

It's been 20 years since Gianni's death, and Donatella brought his original supermodel squad, stars of his most famous shows and ad campaigns, back together to mark the historic anniversary. DV finally decided that the time was right to pay tribute to her brother's design legacy, with a SS18 show based on Versace vintage prints and silhouettes, from his most famous collections.

This week, a major sale of Versace vintage pieces - William Vintage x Gianni Versace Archive, goes live in partnership with FarFetch. It's a tribute to the designer's enduring influence on fashion, sourced by William Vintage founder William Banks-Blaney.

Gianni's vision of womanhood was celebratory and larger than life in every way - his beloved glamazons had the biggest hair, the most stupendous curves and exuded the most unshakeable confidence. His prints were sensory overload - whether they were inspired by rococco gilt furniture, Andy Warhol or sea shells, the results were eyeball-melting. In the two decades since he died, the fashion rollercoaster has embraced normcore, minimalism and streetwear. But designers like Gucci's Alessandro Michele, Balmain's Olivier Rousteng and Saint Laurent's Anthony Vaccarello are bringing colour, embellishment and the sheer joy of rocking an OTT outfit back with a bang - and the hyper-glamour of the Gianni Versace design DNA couldn't feel more of the moment.

William Banks-Blaney made it his mission to track down more than 500 museum-quality vintage Versace pieces, spanning all the most iconic moments of Gianni's design career. These slices of fashion history look as fabulous now as they did on the backs of Naomi et al in the 1990s. Put it this way - we don't expect them to be sitting on the virtual shelf for long.