Versace's new “La Vacanza 2026” campaign hides many more Steven Meisel is back shooting for the brand and references his own work
Versace has today unveiled the La Vacanza 2026 campaign, titled Versace Obsessed. Photographed by the legendary Steven Meisel, the series creates a unique dialogue between past and present, celebrating both the brand and the campaigns that Meisel himself has shot for it over the decades. The images portray models inside a seaside house whose walls are covered with original tearsheets from the Versace campaigns shot by Meisel between 1993 and 2004, a powerful visual tribute that turns every image into a living story of heritage and desire.
Among these historic pages, some of the most legendary names in fashion can be recognised. One spots Kashi McKenzie in the campaign for the SS95 season, Amber Valletta and Georgina Grenville in the campaigns for the SS00 and FW00 seasons; Gisele Bündchen could not be missing in her legendary shots for the SS99 season, Kristen McMenamy in the SS93 campaign, and also Audrey Marnay and Maggie Rizer in the legendary medieval-style shots that presented the FW98 collection. All references that emerge naturally, as if the protagonists of the new campaign were literally living immersed in Versace mythology.
The La Vacanza 2026 collection reflects the same spirit of dialogue with the past. The brand’s creative team has reinterpreted the Versace archive with a powerful blend of couture and street attitude: structured denim shirts, precious printed silks, vivid tailoring and the classic black leather inserts paired with gold. These are the unmistakable codes of Versace, worn with a modern and assertive sensuality. And the images created by Meisel show these garments with a disarming naturalness.
A very meta-textual campaign for the brand, but especially for Steven Meisel, whose images from the ’90s and early 2000s captured a unique intensity. Inserting those very images into the new campaign is a gesture of great elegance and historical awareness. For this reason, Versace Obsessed appears to be a declaration of continuity. In an era that often rewards the new at all costs, Versace has celebrated its own identity by entrusting Meisel’s gaze, compressing past and present and making them coexist in the same room.