Big money, greed, fame, jealousy and family feuds, all wrapped in luxury clothes, models and beautiful people. Behind the runway shows, fashion houses and coveted world of glamour, there have also been stories far darker than anything seen on the catwalk.
Over the years, the fashion world has seen murder cases that shook the public and filled news pages no less than iconic collections or runway scandals.
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Murdered on the steps of his lavish Miami mansion: Gianni Versace at his 1991 fashion show
(Photo: AP)
To the famous stories of Gianni Versace and Maurizio Gucci, another case has recently been added: the death of Isak Andic, the Istanbul-born Jewish founder of Spanish fashion giant Mango, who fell from a cliff near Barcelona in December 2024 at age 71.
Last week, his son Jonathan Andic was arrested on suspicion of involvement in his father’s death, in a case that has gripped Spain. Jonathan Andic denies any involvement and has not been formally charged. He was released on 1 million euros bail, according to recent reports, while the investigation continues
Designers and fashion-company owners have not been the only figures at the center of murder scandals. In 2018, during the men’s fashion weeks, 25-year-old model Harry Uzoka was killed in London by another model, 24-year-old George Koh. What began as a professional rivalry on social media deteriorated into a violent confrontation in London’s Shepherd’s Bush neighborhood. Koh was convicted that year and sentenced to life in prison, with a minimum term of 25 years.
Over the years, other mysterious deaths in fashion have also drawn suspicion, even when officially classified as suicide. One was the death of Kazakh model Ruslana Korshunova, who died after falling from a building in New York in 2008. Her death was ruled a suicide, but speculation and theories have persisted, fueled by claims about extreme psychological pressure, exploitation in the industry and links to questionable spiritual groups.
Korshunova’s name was recently mentioned again in connection with the Epstein files, after it emerged that at age 18 she flew with the convicted sex offender and his staff to his private island. Two years later, she jumped to her death from the window of her Manhattan apartment. She was 20.
Accident or murder? The death of Isak Andic, 2024
Two years after the death of Mango founder Isak Andic, his son Jonathan Andic was arrested on suspicion of murder. The younger Andic was the only person present when his father died during a hike in the Montserrat mountains near Barcelona. He denies involvement in the case.
Isak Andic died in December 2024 after falling from a cliff. Police initially treated the incident as an accident, but the case was later reopened following inconsistencies in his son’s testimony and details gathered at the scene. Reports in Spain said investigators are examining possible motives tied to the father-son relationship, inheritance issues and control of the family business.
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Top: Isak Andic, left, at a Mango fashion show; bottom: Jonathan Andic at Barcelona Bridal Fashion Week
(Photo: Julien M. Hekimian/Getty Images, Miquel Benitez/Getty Images)
Jonathan Andic denies wrongdoing. He was released on bail of 1 million euros after his arrest and questioning, while the case remains under investigation
The Andic family has said it trusts the legal process to clarify the circumstances of the death. Mango has avoided direct public comment on the case, though the company is closely following developments. Since the founder’s death, various management powers have shifted within the family and the company, but the investigation continues to cast a shadow over the board and the heirs.
Jealousy and greed: The murder of Maurizio Gucci, 1995
Thanks to Lady Gaga and her role in the 2021 crime drama “House of Gucci,” the assassination of Maurizio Gucci became a cinematic spectacle, bringing one of the most sensational murder cases of the 1990s back into public view.
The mix of money, luxury handbags and complicated family drama had only one rival at the time: Tom Ford’s debut collection for Gucci for fall 1995, the same period in which Maurizio Gucci was shot dead outside his office on Via Palestro in Milan.
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Jonathan Andic’s arrest on suspicion of murdering his father, Isak Andic, 2026
(Photo: Lluis GENE/AFP)
It took police investigators less than two years to uncover who was behind the killing of the heir to the Italian fashion empire. All leads pointed to his ex-wife, Patrizia Reggiani, played by Gaga in the film. She was arrested for her role in the murder conspiracy, along with her close friend Giuseppina “Pina” Auriemma, who acted as a go-between for Reggiani and the hired killer. Reggiani was convicted and sentenced to 29 years in prison.
In court, Reggiani said she had preferred to hire a hitman because her eyesight was not good enough to aim a gun, a line that became one of the most famous quotes in the case.
Two years after sentencing, her daughters petitioned for a reduction of her sentence, arguing that a brain tumor had impaired her judgment and led her to order the murder. The court reduced the sentence by three years. Months later, Reggiani tried to strangle herself behind bars with a shoelace. In October 2016, after serving 18 years, she was released from prison.
The motives were jealousy and greed. Maurizio Gucci had been CEO of the fashion house founded in 1921 by his grandfather, Guccio Gucci. In 1985, he left Patrizia, officially divorcing her six years later. In 1993, he signed an agreement requiring him to pay her 1.1 million Swiss francs, about $1 million, every year for the rest of her life.
That same year, Maurizio sold his shares in the family brand to Investcorp. Patrizia, then known as “Lady Gucci,” was reportedly enraged by the sale and jealous after hearing he intended to marry a younger woman. After she ordered his killing, her nickname became “the Black Widow.” A year after her release from prison, a court ruled that she was entitled to receive $1 million a year from her former husband’s estate until her death.
A motive that remains a mystery: The murder of Gianni Versace, 1997
Gianni Versace was one of the most popular designers of the early 1990s and helped define the style of the decade. Supermodels Naomi Campbell, Claudia Schiffer and Cindy Crawford regularly walked in Versace’s grand runway shows in Milan, while Princess Diana and Elton John were among his close friends.
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Lady Gaga as Patrizia Reggiani on the set of “House of Gucci,” 2021
(Photo: Luca Bruno)
On the morning of July 15, 1997, Versace was murdered on the steps of his Miami mansion by Andrew Cunanan, an escort whose killing spree began in Minneapolis, continued in Chicago and ended in Miami. In all, Cunanan killed five people, all wealthy gay men.
Versace, then 50, had met Cunanan several months before the murder in San Francisco, where the designer had arrived to design costumes for the city’s ballet company. On the morning of his death, Versace went as usual to News Cafe, where he regularly had breakfast. When he returned to his mansion on Ocean Drive in Miami Beach, Cunanan shot him twice in the head from behind at point-blank range.
The manhunt ended eight days later, when Cunanan’s body was found in Miami after he died by suicide, taking the motive for the murder with him.
Nearly 30 years later, the motive remains open to interpretation. The fashion industry has long circulated rumors about the killing, which was dramatized in the 2018 television series “The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story.”
The most prominent rumor claimed Cunanan wanted revenge because he believed Versace had infected him with HIV. Another theory claimed the Italian Mafia wanted the designer dead. In recent years, investigators and family members have argued that Versace was simply a victim, describing Cunanan as a volatile figure searching for a shortcut to fame.
FBI agent Candice DeLong, who worked on the case, told ABC’s “20/20” in 2017 that Versace’s death changed the world’s relationship with the fashion house.
“After Versace’s murder, the world knew two things: one, who Gianni Versace was, the man and the designer,” DeLong said. “And two, who Andrew Cunanan was, the man who murdered him.”
Another theory links the killing to the Italian Mafia. In his book “Gomorrah,” Roberto Saviano cited former mobster Giuseppe Di Bella, who claimed the designer was killed on the steps of his home because of heavy debts to the ’Ndrangheta crime organization in Calabria. The alleged connection between Italian fashion and organized crime has also surfaced in reports about sweatshops and counterfeit bags in Italy.
Death in the bathtub: The murder of Sylvie Cachay, 2010
The death of fashion designer Sylvie Cachay, who was killed by her boyfriend Nicholas Brooks in 2010, appears in the third episode of the docu-crime series “New York Homicide,” available on Netflix in Israel.
“When a promising fashion designer is found dead in a bathtub, investigators must unravel what really happened inside the private members’ club on the last night of her life,” the episode’s description says.
Cachay, a Peruvian American swimwear designer, became known for her work on Victoria’s Secret’s swimwear line and for her own swimsuit brand. In December 2010, her body was found in an overflowing bathtub inside a room at the Soho House hotel and members’ club in Manhattan. She had signs of strangulation and injuries.
According to investigators’ reconstruction, the night before her death included a series of events: a fire at her apartment and confrontations with Brooks, which led the couple to move to the downtown hotel. Brooks was the last person to see her alive and was with her in the room close to the time of death.
Evidence collected at the scene, along with security-camera footage and Brooks’ movements through the night, built a timeline that raised serious questions. At the time water began overflowing from the bathtub in the room, he was still at the hotel. He later left before the body was discovered.
Prosecutors argued that Cachay had been attacked and strangled before drowning in the bathtub. The defense tried to present the possibility of a combination of medication use and accidental circumstances. In 2013, Brooks was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.
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Gianni Versace with Linda Evangelista and Naomi Campbell at his 1995 fashion show
(Photo: AP Photo/Luca Bruno)
The sad end of a London icon: The murder of Ossie Clark, 1996
Diego Cogolato, then 27, stabbed his 54-year-old lover, British fashion designer Ossie Clark, 37 times. It happened on the evening of August 6, 1996, in Clark’s carefully designed apartment in London’s Notting Hill.
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Wanted notice issued by the FBI after the murder of Gianni Versace, 1997
(Photo: FBI/Getty Images)
Cogolato had been under the influence of psychiatric medication combined with drugs and alcohol. The next morning, at 7 a.m., he went to the local police station and reported that he thought he had killed someone. Officers who arrived at the apartment found Clark’s body.
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Elton John, Princess Diana, Trudie Styler, Sting and the Versace family at Gianni Versace’s funeral, 1997
(Photo: AP Photo/Luca Bruno)
The end of the man who had been known in the 1960s as the “King of King’s Road,” the Chelsea street that became a center of British youth fashion, was bitter and miserable. It was a tragic finale for a designer who, late in life, had fallen from greatness and was making a living sewing labels into dresses and designing clothes for friends.
In the 1960s, Clark founded one of the defining British fashion brands of the decade. His silk and viscose dresses, made from floral fabrics designed by his wife and muse Celia Birtwell, captured the spirit of the era and helped shape the fashion of the 1970s.
In art history, Clark will be remembered through David Hockney’s famous double portrait “Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy.” Hockney painted the couple in their apartment, with a white cat standing near Ossie. The cat was not actually named Percy, but Hockney gave him that name in the painting. The work, now held by Tate Britain, was voted in 2005 as one of Britain’s 10 greatest paintings.