Donatella Versace's 2020 Vision

Donatella’s own story is well documented. It covers the years as her brother’s dress-up doll in their hometown of Reggio Calabria (Gianni’s the one who got her to dye her hair the color not found in nature that she has made her signature); the move to Milan in the 1970s, where she was his muse, sidekick and brand ambassador; her public spin-out after his death in 1997, when she reluctantly donned a mantle that was too weighty for her; her recovery, sobriety and now, on her 20th anniversary as artistic director, apotheosis as an icon of survival, beloved as much for her vulnerability as for her pluckiness. At the age of 62, she has entered the realm of myth, having been the subject of both serious histories and wicked satires (which she usually accepts with good humor). The most current retelling of the tale is a cable miniseries in which she is portrayed by Penelope Cruz. It takes heavy cultural firepower to merit that kind of casting.

Donatella likes to meet people in Gianni Versace’s library at the grand palazzo on Milan’s Via Gesù that he moved into in 1981 (he took Versace’s Medusa logo from the palazzo’s door knocker). With its Roman antiquities, polished marble and heavy mahogany, it works as a kind of baroque stage set. As we sink into the plump sofas, a here-we-go-again feeling hangs in the air. Doesn’t she get tired of telling this tale? “A little bit, but then when I start, I like it,” she says. And then she laughs the laugh that still carries the sandpapery rasp of all the Marlboro Reds she no longer smokes, and you know you’re in for a rollicking time.

By now, Donatella’s story has almost supplanted Gianni’s as the brand’s core narrative, although the two are so closely intertwined as to form two acts of the same grand opera. “There’s always been this curiosity about her,” says stylist Joe McKenna, who began working with Versace in 1989. “When I told Jil Sander that Donatella wanted to have dinner with her, she jumped at the chance—even though they’re polar opposites; she was just so curious what this woman was about. Donatella’s the one who brought the rock ’n’ roll, who made the clothes sexy. She’s kept Versace relevant while a lot of other designers wish they had held up so well. Ask any 15-year-old what Versace’s aesthetic is, and they can tell you. That’s completely Donatella’s doing.”

It would be very difficult to forget Versace’s aesthetic after the show Donatella staged last September for her spring 2018 Versace Tribute Collection. The tribute, of course, is to her brother, and she used the occasion to serve up the 100-proof version of the Versace cocktail she’s been watering down since she took over: toreador pants with crosses and Madonnas printed in eye-popping red, green, yellow and gold; fluorescent Warhol prints that Andy personally gave Gianni permission to use; long black dresses with get-outta-here slits; and everywhere, gold, gold, gold.

Many of the designs were taken directly from Gianni’s archives, with a few tweaks for modernity’s sake. They are exhibit A in what was the classic indictment of Versace’s clothing: that it’s best suited to women of uncertain virtue and men of recent financial success. Maybe there was once something to that, but in these grayer, more somber times the show felt like that moment when Dorothy steps into Technicolor Oz. We’ve been missing this.

You couldn’t manufacture clothing like that anymore even if you wanted to. The Trésor de la Mer prints, with their starfish and scallop shells, require 21 separate screens, one for each color. The pigment in each screen is passed over the garment by hand, front and back, giving it depth and richness. “It’s impossible to do this today—it’s a way of printing that doesn’t exist anymore,” says Donatella. “I had to call two companies in Como that used to work with Gianni. I brought back a kind of forgotten art.

“I know that for a while, what Gianni did wasn’t relevant,” she continues. “The big minimalists came in with their very, very soft neutral colors, no embroidery, only day clothes. Flat shoes! So I thought, Now is the time to teach the millennials what fashion was like in the ’90s. That was the last moment when fashion made a difference, and I think it’s the moment for those prints to come back. I hate to say I was right, but—I was right,” she says, and again comes that laugh, tinkling like a cracked teacup.

Not that the world will ever dress for a Miami Vice dress rehearsal again. Even Donatella doesn’t believe that. “Nobody wears the outfits that are posed in the show—in any show. One day we are goth, one day we are ’90s, and another day we are minimalist. You can wear Gianni’s printed leggings with an old man’s sweater, and it will look fantastic!”

By now you probably know about the Tribute show’s grand finale. It was meant to cause maximum viral contagion, and it worked. In the weeks that followed, Instagram posts of the final tableau, featuring Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Claudia Schiffer, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy and Helena Christensen, all clad in gold metal-mesh, were viewed 4,120,919 times. These were Gianni’s handpicked Wonder Women from his heyday. “Models were different then,” says Donatella. “Cindy Crawford was curvy. We have different models now—smaller breasts, a different kind of body.”

That Gianni made his designs all look so effortless was due in no small part to the unsung skills of his seamstresses. The brassiness of his style makes it easy to overlook how much Versace’s success, past and present, owes to its crackerjack atelier.

Julie de Libran, now creative director of Sonia Rykiel, worked in Versace’s Milan atelier in the late ’90s. “We often made the dresses with a kind of nude stretch bodysuit inside that fit like a second skin,” says de Libran. “The metal mesh that Gianni used followed a woman’s form like a bodice, and was always incredibly flattering. The asymmetrical cuts, the fabrics, everything we chose was designed to make any woman wearing it feel sexy and beautiful.”

That’s one of the big reasons Versace gowns have always commanded such a loyal following on the red carpet. Giorgio Armani beat everyone to the punch in getting his clothes on the backs of movie stars in the late ’80s, yet Versace made up the lost ground quickly, thanks largely to Donatella, who stepped naturally into the role of Hollywood’s louche fairy godmother. She danced with the stars, she partied with the stars, she handed out frocks along with romantic advice, tons of food and genuine sympathy. It wasn’t just the freebies. They liked her, they really liked her.

Things don’t work that way anymore. Luxury brands now pay heavily for the privilege of dressing the biggest stars, whose backs often go to the highest bidders. An A-list actress now commands around $100,000 to wear a particular gown on the red carpet at Cannes or the Oscars (handbags and jewelry are negotiated separately). Most of Versace’s main competitors have bulked up financially in the past two decades, either by going public or by selling out to large luxury conglomerates. They can afford it.

Not so Versace, which remains mostly family-owned. Compared to its competitors, its financial resources are limited. And yet, come Oscar season, there’s Versace, still triumphant on the red carpet.

One reason is the force of Donatella Versace’s personality. The other is an atelier that never lost its touch around the contours of the female form. If you’re looking for an emblematic image, google “Jolie Versace.” Among those that come up is a photograph of Angelina Jolie at the 2012 Oscars. She’s swaddled in black velvet except for a very revealing slit. Suffice it to say the dress briefly spawned its own

Twitter

account, @AngiesRightLeg.

“A client of mine was going to be paid an astronomical sum to wear a certain dress, but she says to me, ‘Donatella just gave me such a pretty dress—that’s what I’m going to wear,’ ” says Tina Bolland, whose agency, Tina Bolland Conseil, helps match celebrities with fashion brands. “Versace doesn’t have that kind of cash, but Donatella makes a woman look good. Not a girl, a woman.” She adds, “Donatella is very sweet to them—she’s not just all ‘darling, darling’; she does things. Some of them remember Donatella from when she was just Gianni’s little sister running around. They know all the stories, and they love to feel part of the family. Donatella is playing the game a different way.”

No, Donatella doesn’t mind telling those stories. “I remember 20 years ago when I went to see an Elton John concert—he was Gianni’s best friend. I was onstage crying, crying, crying, but I didn’t really know why I was crying. So the next day Elton was here, in this house, and he said, ‘You’re leaving tonight to rehab at the Meadows.’ And I immediately said yes. Nobody believed I would.”

There were rocky days for the family. Donatella was married to the American model Paul Beck, with whom she had two children, Allegra, 31, and Daniel, 27. The two ended up divorcing. The kids—in particular her daughter—went through some tough times before straightening out.

“I faced myself, but I hated myself for such a long time, because when you’re an addict, you hurt your family, you hurt your friends. That was the most painful part. I started talking to my children, and in the meantime, they grew up. I got two dogs. Before that I hated dogs, so I don’t even know why I got a dog. I do feel that people love me, but sometimes I have to ask myself why. Because I still have the mentality of before, when I was at nothing. It’s difficult to accept love from other people.”

Donatella has been sober for 14 years now, although she says there’s one last vice she will never surrender. “I have a glamour addiction to creams and hair products. I’ve got to have something, yes?”

As of this year, she has also been artistic director for longer than her brother. That’s a landmark, too. When Gianni was alive, Donatella often felt straitjacketed by his style, and the two fought about it. When she tried to shift away from it, before and directly after his death, chaos ensued. People still expect a certain kind of sexiness from Versace but in a less lip-smacking package. That’s one of those things you cannot change, and a mellower Donatella has come to accept it.

“It’s a challenge,” she allows. “I do a lot more day clothes than evening clothes, when before I wouldn’t even know how to, with party after party after party,” she says. “We live in very different times, very difficult times. You need to be careful not to provoke a certain kind of attitude. How to cut the pants in a sexy way but not attach them to the body—loose but sexy in the same way? That’s where you have to spend your time.”

When Versace has needed a creative jolt along the way, Donatella hasn’t hesitated to hire it, and hire it astutely. Over the past nine years, the designers Christopher Kane, Jonathan Anderson and Anthony Vaccarello have contributed their considerable talents to Versus, Versace’s second line. All have gone on to bigger careers. “I’ve been a fan of Versace since I was a kid, so when Donatella approached me at a party in Paris, I couldn’t resist,” says Vaccarello by email; he left Versus in 2016 to become creative director of Saint Laurent. “She and I are not afraid of femininity, which seems to scare more and more people nowadays. Working with her was very natural. She respected my vision, and I loved it—I love her.”

Everyone is wondering who’s next. Two names floating around last year were former Givenchy designer Riccardo Tisci, a friend, and Kim Jones, men’s director at Louis Vuitton, but the guessing game goes on. “My idea is to bring fresh ideas and fresh eyes into the company. Let’s leave it at that,” says Donatella. How long are we going to wait for them? “You mean how long are they going to wait for me?”

In her current collection, Donatella has tweaked the old signifiers to put a modern spin on the Versace story. Large panels emblazoned with the words equality, strength, unified and courage line the windows of Versace’s store in Milan’s Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II. A black short-sleeve T-shirt, adorned with a black-beaded flower and a purple appliquéd flower bordered in bright yellow, carries the slogan: “Dare to dream brave.” It costs about $920. “You have to be sociologic,” says Donatella.

Industry analysts agree with her. “The designer model is under pressure—consumers are so keen on newness,” says Luca Solca, luxury-goods analyst at Exane BNP Paribas. “Versace has a strong identity and they own their codes, but those codes need to evolve. Donatella is always going to represent the brand, but she needs to add to the team.”

Versace is once again financially stable, having come back from near-bankruptcy thanks to the herculean efforts of

Gian Giacomo Ferraris,

its chief executive from 2009 to 2016 (former Alexander McQueen CEO Jonathan Akeroyd took over in May 2016). In 2014, Versace sold a 20 percent stake to the American private equity firm Blackstone (Donatella, her elder brother, Santo, and Allegra—who inherited Gianni Versace’s 50 percent stake upon his death—own the rest). The deal put the brand’s value at over $1.4 billion, but in global terms, it remains relatively small while the other kids from the old Italian neighborhood—Armani, Prada, Gucci—have grown into fearsome, multibillion-dollar giants.

The family has talked about floating some part of the company on the public markets for years, but somehow it never happened. Now there’s a new date. “In 2019, I’ll do an IPO,” says Donatella.

With all these changes looming, might this not be an opportune time for Donatella to pass the baton and take a well-earned rest? She laughs, a little less heartily. “Do you want me to go? Just tell me. I’m serious.” What can you say? Sitting across the marble coffee table from this tiny, singular woman who has battled so doggedly to keep her house and herself together, you can answer only one way: No!