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Announcing... The WINNERS of the 2nd annual theFashionSpot Awards:
Designer of the Year
Ready-to-Wear Collection of the Year
Haute Couture Collection of the Year
Model of the Year
Magazine Cover of the Year
Ad Campaign of the Year
Congratulations to ALL of our worthy winners! Thank you to our tFS forum members who voted and particupated.
Donatella Versace - Designer, Creative Director of Versace
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Versace-Goddess
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Thanks for picks. I love to see the clothes in a different way. Some dresses look really better as i Milan Fashion show. The long dresses are stunning.
DuTTyRoCK112
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It's not uncommon for designers to show the same collection more than once... Dior has done it in Asia. I suppose it is to reach out to different markets of global clients; I'm sure most Versace customers don't go to style.com to see the new collections every season.
I think the casting here is nice, and I especially enjoy seeing the african-american model; I think she is perfect for that beige jumpsuit.
Nobody beats Tanya in the periwinkle gown, though.
matthaeus123
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girl #1 is really pretty.
Out of tragedy
After her brother's murder, Donatella Versace inherited his family fashion house. It was in trouble - and so was she. Jess Cartner-Morley hears how she turned both around
Jess Cartner-Morley
Saturday February 9, 2008
Guardian
The late Gianni Versace once said, "If I were to marry, I would look for a girl like Donatella." Four decades ago, when Gianni was a young man and his sister, eight years his junior, still in her early teens, he would drive Donatella, her hair already bleached blond and coiffed under his instruction, her outfit approved, to the only disco in Calabria, southern Italy, with their friends. A decade later, when Gianni was beginning his career as a fashion designer in Milan, his indulged baby sister was still by his side - his muse and closest adviser. Rupert Everett, a friend of the Versaces, once described their passionate and fiery relationship as "a locking of energy fields". As the Versace star rose in the 80s and 90s, brother and sister continued to party as well as to work together, although the locations moved from rural Italian discos to starry nights in a huge, elegant family villa on Lake Como, a palatial apartment on Via Gesù in Milan and, of course, Casa Casuarina, Miami.
Then on July 15 1997, Gianni was gunned down at the gates of Casa Casuarina by Andrew Cunanan, and the Versace script was abruptly torn up. Donatella, who for 42 years had lived and worked under the protective wing of her brother, was thrust unceremoniously into the limelight, and into the design hotseat. Less than three months after Gianni's death, she took a bow in floods of tears to a standing ovation at the end of her first fashion show as designer. But the drama did not end there. The goodwill of the fickle fashion world ebbed as fast as it had swelled, and the pressure of saving the Versace name and business proved too much. In 2004 Donatella's career as a party animal came to an abrupt end when she admitted herself to rehab for cocaine addiction.
That was nearly four years ago. Today, it is two days after Donatella showed her most recent collection, the menswear show for winter 2008. There were dramatic black sheepskin ponchos, full-length beaver fur coats, and Beyoncé and Jay-Z in the front row. Versace is glamour to the core, but what has changed is the devil-may-care attitude, the spectacle of decadence that Versace once stood for. The setting for my meeting with Donatella is Gianni's Via Gesù apartment, which now functions as a kind of ceremonial headquarters for Versace, housing the showroom and a grand sequence of drawing rooms that Donatella uses for meetings and entertaining. Beyond the castle-sized doors that open on to one of Milan's smartest streets, a covered terrace is divided into a series of sitting rooms, with geometrically arranged clusters of black and white leather sofas, each arranged around a glass coffee table adorned with orchids. Elegant table lamps provide soft pools of light to counteract the wintry gloom. It is a Monday afternoon, and there are no half-naked supermodels or Cristal-sipping hip-hop stars. Everyone is black-clad and businesslike, from the waiter who brings my water on a silver tray to the glossy haired employees who stalk purposefully across the courtyard stabbing at their BlackBerries.
The floor is polished stone, but to judge by the demeanour of Donatella's entourage, one would have thought it was made of eggshells. In an industry where image is everything, designers are renowned for paying obsessive attention to the minutiae of their environment. I have spent enough time in Italian fashion houses to know that, frankly, an ambience of barely controlled hysteria is par for the course. (It is said that while Tom Ford was at Gucci, he micromanaged the aesthetic of the company to such an extent that an employee who wished to keep a yellow pencil on their desk, rather than black as prescribed, had to have a Polaroid of the pencil faxed to Ford for his approval.) But, here, one does not get the impression that Donatella is giving off-with-their-heads orders. She is not so much feared, I suspect, as protected.
We walk from the terrace to Gianni's first-floor rooms. The decor is that of a state apartment: marble busts in the hallways, plush gilt and velvet armchairs placed in regal pairs, glass bookcases of antique books. I am ushered to a low, mother-of pearl-inlaid coffee table by which two chairs have been placed. An attendant brings two glasses of water and, for Donatella, an espresso in an exquisite pink-and-gold bone china Versace cup and saucer. Another sets down a pack of cigarettes, which have been gift-wrapped in Versace paper, also pink and gold, and monogrammed DV - Donatella, famously, demands that this be done to each one of her ever-present packs of cigarettes, because she dislikes looking at the health warning - and a cigarette lighter thickly encrusted with what I take to be crystals but might just as well be diamonds. The stage thus set, Donatella makes her entrance.
The first thing that strikes me is how tiny she is. Once upon a time, Donatella's voluptuous bottom encased in tight, black trousers was as much a recognisable part of her look as her white-blond hair, but now she is petite, still curvy, but with a waist that cannot be more than 20 inches. In black trousers and a tight, black vest, her body is compact and dense, like a boxer's. She is seated by a window, and her assistant wonders if she will be cold, but she shrugs and explains she is dressed for her portrait. You don't work on having a body like that at 52 only to hide it away. She is striking, with olive skin, heavy-lidded eyes and the candy-floss mane of a My Little Pony.
By rights, Donatella should be feeling rather jolly. The Versace label is in a healthier state than it has been in the 10-and-a-half years she has been at the helm. In 2006, after several years of running at a loss, the company posted profits of €19.1m (£14.2m). In 2007, sales rose 30%. The company's debt, which stood at €1.5m (£1.1m) at the end of 2005, has been turned around into assets of €11.3m (£8.4m), despite the phasing out of licensing agreements that were bolstering sales but dragging down the image of the label. The prestige of the Versace name is also at a new high. Sarah Mower, the respected fashion commentator, called the last womenswear collection in September 2007 "hot, easy and believable", adding that "in days gone by, she might have loaded bling and busy prints on to dresses like these, but if there's one thing Versace has discovered in herself in the last couple of years, it's that she can also make glamour radiate from restraint... proof that Donatella Versace is at the top of her game". And while Donatella has been gaining respect for her own work, that of her brother has been enjoying a renaissance as a reference point for young designers. The London catwalk shows - often a signpost of the direction other cities will take in subsequent seasons - were last year full of references to Gianni's iconic clothes.
For all that, Donatella, although gracious and polite, is visibly on edge, her hand trembling as she sips her espresso. The British fashion press in particular have not always been kind to her so, to reassure her, I relate what Christopher Kane, a young star of London fashion week for whom Versace has been a major influence, told me when I asked what drew him to the label: "What has me hooked about Versace is the strong, sexual, elegant and sophisticated predator-woman that it seems to embody." She considers this for a moment. "I wouldn't say the Versace woman is predatory. I would say she is seductive. Women need to seduce in order to achieve their goals. I don't just mean seduce men - they need to seduce other people, and they need to seduce themselves, because once you seduce yourself, you start to like yourself and are better able to achieve what you want. There are lots of ways to seduce - the brain is the best seduction tool you have. But clothes can help, too."
The economic logic behind this - that looking sexy will get you what you want, and therefore it makes more sense to spend £1,000 on a scanty Versace cocktail dress than on a MaxMara cashmere coat - is at the heart of Versace. This is what gives the label its aura of sex and success, an aura that, handled well, can rub off on to lip glosses and keyrings and beach towels, boosting their market value by 1,000%. Donatella understands this perfectly: "The customer who wants something Versace," she says, "wants what Versace stands for."
But the challenge she has faced over the past decade has been far, far tougher than simply creating more and more party dresses. The fact is that when Gianni died, the company was already in need of financial restructuring. (Gianni was considering going to the stock exchange the following year; since his death, those plans have remained on ice.) What's more, the conspicuous consumption with which the label was associated - Malcolm McLaren once described Casa Casuarina as "a demimonde of stupendous and orgiastic splendour" - was already beginning to look anachronistic in a new era of stealth wealth.
After her brother's murder, Donatella Versace inherited his family fashion house. It was in trouble - and so was she. Jess Cartner-Morley hears how she turned both around
Jess Cartner-Morley
Saturday February 9, 2008
Guardian
The late Gianni Versace once said, "If I were to marry, I would look for a girl like Donatella." Four decades ago, when Gianni was a young man and his sister, eight years his junior, still in her early teens, he would drive Donatella, her hair already bleached blond and coiffed under his instruction, her outfit approved, to the only disco in Calabria, southern Italy, with their friends. A decade later, when Gianni was beginning his career as a fashion designer in Milan, his indulged baby sister was still by his side - his muse and closest adviser. Rupert Everett, a friend of the Versaces, once described their passionate and fiery relationship as "a locking of energy fields". As the Versace star rose in the 80s and 90s, brother and sister continued to party as well as to work together, although the locations moved from rural Italian discos to starry nights in a huge, elegant family villa on Lake Como, a palatial apartment on Via Gesù in Milan and, of course, Casa Casuarina, Miami.
Then on July 15 1997, Gianni was gunned down at the gates of Casa Casuarina by Andrew Cunanan, and the Versace script was abruptly torn up. Donatella, who for 42 years had lived and worked under the protective wing of her brother, was thrust unceremoniously into the limelight, and into the design hotseat. Less than three months after Gianni's death, she took a bow in floods of tears to a standing ovation at the end of her first fashion show as designer. But the drama did not end there. The goodwill of the fickle fashion world ebbed as fast as it had swelled, and the pressure of saving the Versace name and business proved too much. In 2004 Donatella's career as a party animal came to an abrupt end when she admitted herself to rehab for cocaine addiction.
That was nearly four years ago. Today, it is two days after Donatella showed her most recent collection, the menswear show for winter 2008. There were dramatic black sheepskin ponchos, full-length beaver fur coats, and Beyoncé and Jay-Z in the front row. Versace is glamour to the core, but what has changed is the devil-may-care attitude, the spectacle of decadence that Versace once stood for. The setting for my meeting with Donatella is Gianni's Via Gesù apartment, which now functions as a kind of ceremonial headquarters for Versace, housing the showroom and a grand sequence of drawing rooms that Donatella uses for meetings and entertaining. Beyond the castle-sized doors that open on to one of Milan's smartest streets, a covered terrace is divided into a series of sitting rooms, with geometrically arranged clusters of black and white leather sofas, each arranged around a glass coffee table adorned with orchids. Elegant table lamps provide soft pools of light to counteract the wintry gloom. It is a Monday afternoon, and there are no half-naked supermodels or Cristal-sipping hip-hop stars. Everyone is black-clad and businesslike, from the waiter who brings my water on a silver tray to the glossy haired employees who stalk purposefully across the courtyard stabbing at their BlackBerries.
The floor is polished stone, but to judge by the demeanour of Donatella's entourage, one would have thought it was made of eggshells. In an industry where image is everything, designers are renowned for paying obsessive attention to the minutiae of their environment. I have spent enough time in Italian fashion houses to know that, frankly, an ambience of barely controlled hysteria is par for the course. (It is said that while Tom Ford was at Gucci, he micromanaged the aesthetic of the company to such an extent that an employee who wished to keep a yellow pencil on their desk, rather than black as prescribed, had to have a Polaroid of the pencil faxed to Ford for his approval.) But, here, one does not get the impression that Donatella is giving off-with-their-heads orders. She is not so much feared, I suspect, as protected.
We walk from the terrace to Gianni's first-floor rooms. The decor is that of a state apartment: marble busts in the hallways, plush gilt and velvet armchairs placed in regal pairs, glass bookcases of antique books. I am ushered to a low, mother-of pearl-inlaid coffee table by which two chairs have been placed. An attendant brings two glasses of water and, for Donatella, an espresso in an exquisite pink-and-gold bone china Versace cup and saucer. Another sets down a pack of cigarettes, which have been gift-wrapped in Versace paper, also pink and gold, and monogrammed DV - Donatella, famously, demands that this be done to each one of her ever-present packs of cigarettes, because she dislikes looking at the health warning - and a cigarette lighter thickly encrusted with what I take to be crystals but might just as well be diamonds. The stage thus set, Donatella makes her entrance.
The first thing that strikes me is how tiny she is. Once upon a time, Donatella's voluptuous bottom encased in tight, black trousers was as much a recognisable part of her look as her white-blond hair, but now she is petite, still curvy, but with a waist that cannot be more than 20 inches. In black trousers and a tight, black vest, her body is compact and dense, like a boxer's. She is seated by a window, and her assistant wonders if she will be cold, but she shrugs and explains she is dressed for her portrait. You don't work on having a body like that at 52 only to hide it away. She is striking, with olive skin, heavy-lidded eyes and the candy-floss mane of a My Little Pony.
By rights, Donatella should be feeling rather jolly. The Versace label is in a healthier state than it has been in the 10-and-a-half years she has been at the helm. In 2006, after several years of running at a loss, the company posted profits of €19.1m (£14.2m). In 2007, sales rose 30%. The company's debt, which stood at €1.5m (£1.1m) at the end of 2005, has been turned around into assets of €11.3m (£8.4m), despite the phasing out of licensing agreements that were bolstering sales but dragging down the image of the label. The prestige of the Versace name is also at a new high. Sarah Mower, the respected fashion commentator, called the last womenswear collection in September 2007 "hot, easy and believable", adding that "in days gone by, she might have loaded bling and busy prints on to dresses like these, but if there's one thing Versace has discovered in herself in the last couple of years, it's that she can also make glamour radiate from restraint... proof that Donatella Versace is at the top of her game". And while Donatella has been gaining respect for her own work, that of her brother has been enjoying a renaissance as a reference point for young designers. The London catwalk shows - often a signpost of the direction other cities will take in subsequent seasons - were last year full of references to Gianni's iconic clothes.
For all that, Donatella, although gracious and polite, is visibly on edge, her hand trembling as she sips her espresso. The British fashion press in particular have not always been kind to her so, to reassure her, I relate what Christopher Kane, a young star of London fashion week for whom Versace has been a major influence, told me when I asked what drew him to the label: "What has me hooked about Versace is the strong, sexual, elegant and sophisticated predator-woman that it seems to embody." She considers this for a moment. "I wouldn't say the Versace woman is predatory. I would say she is seductive. Women need to seduce in order to achieve their goals. I don't just mean seduce men - they need to seduce other people, and they need to seduce themselves, because once you seduce yourself, you start to like yourself and are better able to achieve what you want. There are lots of ways to seduce - the brain is the best seduction tool you have. But clothes can help, too."
The economic logic behind this - that looking sexy will get you what you want, and therefore it makes more sense to spend £1,000 on a scanty Versace cocktail dress than on a MaxMara cashmere coat - is at the heart of Versace. This is what gives the label its aura of sex and success, an aura that, handled well, can rub off on to lip glosses and keyrings and beach towels, boosting their market value by 1,000%. Donatella understands this perfectly: "The customer who wants something Versace," she says, "wants what Versace stands for."
But the challenge she has faced over the past decade has been far, far tougher than simply creating more and more party dresses. The fact is that when Gianni died, the company was already in need of financial restructuring. (Gianni was considering going to the stock exchange the following year; since his death, those plans have remained on ice.) What's more, the conspicuous consumption with which the label was associated - Malcolm McLaren once described Casa Casuarina as "a demimonde of stupendous and orgiastic splendour" - was already beginning to look anachronistic in a new era of stealth wealth.
It was in these circumstances that Donatella, in the midst of her grief, was asked to step into the role of her dead brother. "I felt for a long time that I had this job because of a tragedy, not because I deserved it. I wanted to succeed for Gianni, because he cared so much for the company and I knew he would have wanted it to carry on. But I was frightened, and I had no confidence. What I knew was Gianni's style, because I had worked with him for 20 years, and I thought that was what people wanted from me, so I tried to follow in his footsteps. But it was not exactly my style."
What's more, it didn't work. Donatella's collections began to be seen as pale imitations of her brother's work. Santo, elder brother of Donatella and Gianni and the business brain of the family, oversaw the sale of Casa Casuarina for $20m (£10m) in 2001, followed by Gianni's Manhattan townhouse for $30m (£15m) and much of his art collection, including more than 20 Picassos - but still the company was mired in debt, and Donatella's drug problem was the fashion industry's worst-kept secret.
Donatella's decision to go public about going into rehab in July 2004 was a turning point for the company. A culture of secretiveness was broken, and the following month Giancarlo di Risio, the highly rated boss of Fendi, was recruited to join the company as CEO. Donatella told the Wall Street Journal that having looked at where the company was headed, Di Risio told her, "This is not going to work. This is going to die." The label's secondary Versus line was ditched, the better to concentrate attention on the main line. More assets were sold, and a new strategy of focus on accessories, by far the most profitable aspect of the luxury fashion business, was implemented.
The new, sober Donatella "lost some friends and found some different friends". Beyond this, she is not keen to dwell on the bad days, swiftly closing down this avenue of inquiry with therapy-speak about being "in a good place". What she does want to talk about is how she found her own place in the Versace pantheon: what she calls "my revolution". From the start, Donatella's taste was slightly different from that of her brother. The New York Times, reporting on that first show noticed that the collection "felt as much like Ms Versace's aesthetic as Mr Versace's. Without that, there might be some doubt that the house could go on. But her colour sense is lighter, as is her touch." It was not until she had tackled her personal demons, however, that Donatella found the confidence to make the Versace name truly her own.
The theme of renewal while staying true to one's heritage recurs often. (Her favourite musician is Prince, she tells me, because "I love the way he renovates his sound while remaining consistent with his style".) Of the latest Versace ad campaign, which features Gisele Bündchen in a draped jersey dress against a white background, she says, "to use a celebrity supermodel is very Versace, but it's done in a much cleaner way: the lights are cleaner, the background is cleaner, the make-up is cleaner."
The difference between the Gianni Versace look and the Donatella Versace look comes down to three elements "that were part of the Versace identity 15 years ago, and aren't today: bright colours, very revealing clothes and a lot of decoration. It took a lot of courage to get rid of those things, because I was not sure I could do Versace without them, but I found the confidence and I am very pleased I did. My revolution was successful." Jonathan Saunders, another hot name on the British fashion scene who has referenced Versace in recent collections, says that "being a woman she understands exactly what women want to wear and hits that balance between feminine and sexy rather then fantasy and sexy".
Donatella's style revolution does not appear to have extended to herself, however. Looking at her, it is hard not to be reminded of trauma victims who use an unchanging personal appearance to cling to the world as it was before tragedy stuck. "You have to renew yourself," Donatella tells me, "because tomorrow is what matters in fashion. Today is already old." Yet when I ask whether she ever feels like branching out from her monochrome, tightly tailored image, she seems positively affronted. "Me? In, what, flowery dresses? No. No, no, no. It would not go well with my personality. I don't wear clothes that are girlie, because I'm not girlie."
Her vision for Versace now is to position it "at the top of luxury". The world has changed since Gianni's day - that was, as Donatella puts it, "a different economic moment" - and success in the luxury business increasingly means using a relatively small but high-profile clothing business as leverage to boost sales of non-clothing items, from perfume to private jets. Accessories accounted for 4% of sales in 2005, compared with around 40% in 2007. Donatella has established a lucrative sideline customising the interiors of yachts and sports cars for the super-rich - the first Versace-branded helicopters will be delivered to customers this May, while the end of the year will see the opening of a seven-star Versace hotel in Dubai. The shifting of the world map of luxury has favoured Versace. Five years ago, the fact that the label courted clientele in Russia and China was the cause of much sniggering in the fashion world. Now that the emerging markets are the holy grail of the industry, this looks with hindsight to have been rather a smart move.
Donatella owns 20% of the business, Santo 30% and Allegra, who at 21 is the elder of Donatella's children by her estranged husband, Paul Beck, 50%. Nonetheless, Donatella is insistent that the company is "no longer a family business. Not any more. That's the old Versace. We have a new manager, and it's owned as a family but it's not run as a family any more."
The recent emergence of Santo's daughter, Francesca (pictured left), a graduate of Central St Martins, as a promising designer with small collections of her own (coyly named Francesca V) has reinforced the assumption that the company will, at some point in the future, be passed to a younger generation of Versaces. (There are also two young men in the family, Donatella's son, Daniel, and Santo's son, Antonio.) But in the light of Donatella's insistence that Versace is no longer run as a family business, her newfound interest in mentoring young designers - she has taken a keen interest in Christopher Kane's career, and promoted that of Norwegian designer Kristian Aadnevik - takes on a possible new significance. Having herself buckled under the pressure of inheriting a family mantle, it seems unlikely that Donatella would be inclined to put pressure on Allegra, who has suffered from anorexia; and she becomes agitated when I mention Francesca as a possible future element of the company. "She is doing her own thing," she says brusquely, swatting the idea away impatiently and leaning forward in her chair the better to get her point across. "I am not about to retire," she says, managing to convey disdain with the rolling of her "r"s. "The new era of Versace has begun already. I have just started it." The king is dead; long live the queen.
What's more, it didn't work. Donatella's collections began to be seen as pale imitations of her brother's work. Santo, elder brother of Donatella and Gianni and the business brain of the family, oversaw the sale of Casa Casuarina for $20m (£10m) in 2001, followed by Gianni's Manhattan townhouse for $30m (£15m) and much of his art collection, including more than 20 Picassos - but still the company was mired in debt, and Donatella's drug problem was the fashion industry's worst-kept secret.
Donatella's decision to go public about going into rehab in July 2004 was a turning point for the company. A culture of secretiveness was broken, and the following month Giancarlo di Risio, the highly rated boss of Fendi, was recruited to join the company as CEO. Donatella told the Wall Street Journal that having looked at where the company was headed, Di Risio told her, "This is not going to work. This is going to die." The label's secondary Versus line was ditched, the better to concentrate attention on the main line. More assets were sold, and a new strategy of focus on accessories, by far the most profitable aspect of the luxury fashion business, was implemented.
The new, sober Donatella "lost some friends and found some different friends". Beyond this, she is not keen to dwell on the bad days, swiftly closing down this avenue of inquiry with therapy-speak about being "in a good place". What she does want to talk about is how she found her own place in the Versace pantheon: what she calls "my revolution". From the start, Donatella's taste was slightly different from that of her brother. The New York Times, reporting on that first show noticed that the collection "felt as much like Ms Versace's aesthetic as Mr Versace's. Without that, there might be some doubt that the house could go on. But her colour sense is lighter, as is her touch." It was not until she had tackled her personal demons, however, that Donatella found the confidence to make the Versace name truly her own.
The theme of renewal while staying true to one's heritage recurs often. (Her favourite musician is Prince, she tells me, because "I love the way he renovates his sound while remaining consistent with his style".) Of the latest Versace ad campaign, which features Gisele Bündchen in a draped jersey dress against a white background, she says, "to use a celebrity supermodel is very Versace, but it's done in a much cleaner way: the lights are cleaner, the background is cleaner, the make-up is cleaner."
The difference between the Gianni Versace look and the Donatella Versace look comes down to three elements "that were part of the Versace identity 15 years ago, and aren't today: bright colours, very revealing clothes and a lot of decoration. It took a lot of courage to get rid of those things, because I was not sure I could do Versace without them, but I found the confidence and I am very pleased I did. My revolution was successful." Jonathan Saunders, another hot name on the British fashion scene who has referenced Versace in recent collections, says that "being a woman she understands exactly what women want to wear and hits that balance between feminine and sexy rather then fantasy and sexy".
Donatella's style revolution does not appear to have extended to herself, however. Looking at her, it is hard not to be reminded of trauma victims who use an unchanging personal appearance to cling to the world as it was before tragedy stuck. "You have to renew yourself," Donatella tells me, "because tomorrow is what matters in fashion. Today is already old." Yet when I ask whether she ever feels like branching out from her monochrome, tightly tailored image, she seems positively affronted. "Me? In, what, flowery dresses? No. No, no, no. It would not go well with my personality. I don't wear clothes that are girlie, because I'm not girlie."
Her vision for Versace now is to position it "at the top of luxury". The world has changed since Gianni's day - that was, as Donatella puts it, "a different economic moment" - and success in the luxury business increasingly means using a relatively small but high-profile clothing business as leverage to boost sales of non-clothing items, from perfume to private jets. Accessories accounted for 4% of sales in 2005, compared with around 40% in 2007. Donatella has established a lucrative sideline customising the interiors of yachts and sports cars for the super-rich - the first Versace-branded helicopters will be delivered to customers this May, while the end of the year will see the opening of a seven-star Versace hotel in Dubai. The shifting of the world map of luxury has favoured Versace. Five years ago, the fact that the label courted clientele in Russia and China was the cause of much sniggering in the fashion world. Now that the emerging markets are the holy grail of the industry, this looks with hindsight to have been rather a smart move.
Donatella owns 20% of the business, Santo 30% and Allegra, who at 21 is the elder of Donatella's children by her estranged husband, Paul Beck, 50%. Nonetheless, Donatella is insistent that the company is "no longer a family business. Not any more. That's the old Versace. We have a new manager, and it's owned as a family but it's not run as a family any more."
The recent emergence of Santo's daughter, Francesca (pictured left), a graduate of Central St Martins, as a promising designer with small collections of her own (coyly named Francesca V) has reinforced the assumption that the company will, at some point in the future, be passed to a younger generation of Versaces. (There are also two young men in the family, Donatella's son, Daniel, and Santo's son, Antonio.) But in the light of Donatella's insistence that Versace is no longer run as a family business, her newfound interest in mentoring young designers - she has taken a keen interest in Christopher Kane's career, and promoted that of Norwegian designer Kristian Aadnevik - takes on a possible new significance. Having herself buckled under the pressure of inheriting a family mantle, it seems unlikely that Donatella would be inclined to put pressure on Allegra, who has suffered from anorexia; and she becomes agitated when I mention Francesca as a possible future element of the company. "She is doing her own thing," she says brusquely, swatting the idea away impatiently and leaning forward in her chair the better to get her point across. "I am not about to retire," she says, managing to convey disdain with the rolling of her "r"s. "The new era of Versace has begun already. I have just started it." The king is dead; long live the queen.
(if you work hard on it)
) 
Ive been a Versace fan for ages and the more I read about how much better Donatella is doing for Versace the more proud I become of being a fan. Its amazing how she's managed through all this crap. I cant wait to see the FW08/09 collection.
Versace-Goddess
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oomarhatelier
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That is a very nice article, I am very positive about that. Nowdays Versace is one of the
biggest show which i wait for.
biggest show which i wait for.
