![]() ![]() ![]() But his genius for tailoring and pushing creative and technical boundaries earned him unanimous respect. Her brother Gianni’s “more is more” philosophy of piling baroque patterns on to animal prints, embellishing everything with gold Medusa heads and working in some bondage straps for good measure was always divisive. There was a time, specifically the mid-noughties, when the Versace business looked precarious. “I have to pinch myself sometimes,” she says of how things have played out. “If people like me now it’s just because I’ve been around such a long time.” She’s underselling her achievement: there’s something impressive about the way she’s survived and ultimately thrived. All this has made her an unexpected role model. In her seventh decade, she finds herself fronting a company that’s bigger than ever since Capri Holdings (the fashion group founded by Michael Kors which also owns Jimmy Choo) bought it five years ago for just over $US2 billion. Credit: Gettyĭonatella, untrained and for a long time unserious, was never meant to become one of the most famous fashion designers in the world. I get that.”ĭonatella Versace with supermodels (left to right), Carla Bruni, Claudia Schiffer, Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Helena Christensen, walk the runway at the Versace Spring Summer 2018 fashion show during Milan Fashion Week. For years, I wanted to be invisible … but I’m a public figure for this company. “I had a problem for so long with people looking at me and being judgmental. Her response? To get more tanned, more tweaked – and back on the exercise bike. But in the early noughties, with celebrity magazines prowling for humiliating pictures of celebrities, Donatella was hunted. While she was always shy, Donatella didn’t exactly shun the limelight – unlike her daughter Allegra, now 36, who works for the company strictly behind the scenes. What must it be like to be the very public face of a brand that’s always set a premium on an explicitly youthful sexiness? The answer’s not simple. This is Donatella at 68: thoughtful, self-deprecating, but giving no quarter to the Grow Old Gracefully lobby. On her feet – it would be disappointing if otherwise – five-inch heels. On top, she’s wearing a floaty purple chiffon blouse. The black trousers are still tight, though flared from the knee. The tan is more Biedermeier oak than mid-century teak and the tight, tight black clothes of yore have been replaced by a twinset and pearls.Īctually, that last bit isn’t true. The diamond slabs that used to adorn her knuckles have been replaced by some kind of “spiritual” Chinese bracelet (truth be told, she’s bored with it but can’t get it off). The hair is still a knowingly unnatural shade of platinum, but it’s shoulder rather than waist length. On closer acquaintance, however, there are subtle signs she’s moved on from the cartoon Donatella who was such a tabloid staple. On the sunny morning we meet in her penthouse offices on the 10th floor of the shiny new Versace HQ in Milan, Donatella Versace is giving it the full works. ![]()
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