Drake Carr Draws a Very Versace Campaign

For Chapter 2 of Versace Embodied, designer Dario Vitale’s art-forward campaign, the brand commissioned a large-scale drawing titled “Love Theme 4:55” by New York artist Drake Carr. With work reminiscent of the fashion illustrations of the late Interview collaborator Antonio Lopez, Carr’s drawing is the perfect complement to Vitale’s 80s-inspired Spring Summer 2026 collection. To find out how he brought this collaboration to life, our senior editor called up the artist for a quick chat.

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DRAKE CARR: Hi.

TAYLORE SCARABELLI: Hi! How was the rest of your time at Parkside the other night? Did you dance?

CARR: I was dancing.

SCARABELLI: I wanted to stay but Slava dragged me home. Probably for the best. Okay. I’m going to start by asking you, how did you feel when you first saw this new Versace collection by Dario? Because you’re such an ’80s diva to me.

CARR: Well, the way that I first saw it was by friends sending it to me saying, “This is so you.” I think you’re someone who also appreciates an ’80s silhouette, music, but there’s also a lot of things from the ’80s I don’t like.

SCARABELLI: Of course.

CARR: And sometimes when people say the thing like, “You’re so ’80s,” it can make me wince a little bit because I agree that I am, but there’s some of it that’s really bad and cheesy. So I loved it when I first saw it. I was like, “Finally.”

SCARABELLI: Was there anything specific that you were drawn to?

CARR: Weirdly, there wasn’t a lot that I was like, “I need to have that.” It was more like this hard to pin down feeling—like it was sexy in the ways that it was unsexy. The weird crotches were doing something for me. The unbuttoned pants. And I loved the butter yellow dress with the diamonds on it. 

SCARABELLI: Me too. Had you done a brand collaboration like this before?

CARR: Not like this. This is the largest scale collaboration and also the largest portrait I’ve done in terms of people and size.

SCARABELLI: Right, because normally you do individual portraits. How was that making something with this bigger cast of people?

CARR: Well, I was excited because I got to choose who I was drawing, but then I started to get stressed because it’s a bit of a confusing math equation trying to figure out everyone’s proportions. 

SCARABELLI: Oh, to fit everyone in, you mean? 

CARR: Yeah. Six people are sitting there staring at me and I’m trying to figure out how to fit them on these two huge panels, but then I sketched it in and I drew/painted each person individually. It was kind of like reverse of the America’s Next Top Model ending credits—

SCARABELLI: The girls reappear instead of disappearing. [Laughs]

CARR: Yeah.

SCARABELLI: Who did you cast for this?

CARR: The first two obvious models were John [Patrikas] and Rose [Mori]. John’s my fiancé and Rose is one of my best friends and I’ve drawn and painted both of them a ton of times, so I know their faces very well. And then Ms. Carrie Stacks and Thug Pop, they are two friends from my bartending days at Happy Fun. They both DJ’d there. And I used to work with Rose there every Friday for almost six years.

SCARABELLI: Oh, cool.

CARR: And then Sebastian [Acero] and Chloé [Despos] are newer friends. She’s like a total fashion head. Actually, one of the reasons the Versace thing felt meant to be was that I was on a trip with her and the girls went shopping, so John and I were like, “We need a runway show.” We went crazy gay guy mode and stayed up till 4:00 A.M. producing a runway production and a look book at this Airbnb. We were picking songs and then setting up like iPhones and camcorders and then doing a catwalk. We were talking about how it felt very Versace because this was right when that collection debuted, on the Aries Supermoon, and then the next day Versace reached out to me. And so I felt like I needed to have Chloe in it because we had kind of conjured this collaboration through our voodoo runway thing.

SCARABELLI: That’s such a beautiful story. We’re so used to fashion campaigns being shot by the hottest photographer who’s done a million editorials and blah, blah, blah. And so to come at it from an art angle, from a fashion fan angle, is so refreshing.

CARR: Well, it felt really emotional for me making this portrait. I also did it in my studio, which is basically an extension of my home. Seeing Rose and John, people who I love, who really know me, in glam wearing Versace, with my music playing, because music is a big part of these portraits. It still sometimes washes over me. All these factors came together and made it a very cinematic, memorable, dream-like moment. And it sounds cheesy, but it really felt the power of friendship and making things with people who you love. It was one of my most favorite things I’ve ever done.

SCARABELLI: Oh, that’s beautiful. So what happens with the work now?

CARR: I have it. It’s a huge piece. It’s eight feet long by six feet tall. I’m hoping to show it in New York so that people can see it in person because it’s way obviously completely different from looking at it on your tiny phone. It’s like a wall when you walk up to it. 

SCARABELLI:Okay. Well, I look forward to seeing it in the flesh. Keep me posted.

CARR: I will.