11O
was named a Stonewall Ambassador and appeared at New
York City’s Pride march in a rainbow sequinned dress and
matching go-go boots. We commiserate for a bit about the
rollback of LGBTQ+ rights in the US. ‘I wish people would
fight more. People fight in New York, people fight in L A, but the
other places in America – they need help,’ she says. ‘They
need to be pushed to fight, because this is not right. The country
is not moving forward. It’s going backward.’ne thing that is going forward, in a big way, is the house
of Versace. In 2O18, the company was acquired by
luxury group Capri Holdings, the parent company of
Michael Kors and Jimmy Choo. ‘I was very careful about deciding
something like this, which could change my life completely,’
Versace says of the sale. ‘I think the company needs to move
ahead. I’m very happy about my choice, because Versace can
grow faster.’ Indeed, Capri is pursuing an aggressive expansion
of the brand, with plans to open dozens of stores each year.
Beyond that, she doesn’t know what the
future holds. ‘I cannot live forever. I’m
not going to be here forever, and things
change in fashion. I’m the first one open
to changes.’ But there are none on the
horizon just now. She jokes, ‘Nobody
wants me to step aside, and that’s terrible!’
Instead, she’s gone full throttle to
align the brand with her beliefs.
Versace ceased to use fur in 2O18,
and the company is striving to be more
sustainable, having just opened a new
green headquarters in Milan constructed
from ethically sourced materials. As they’re
opening all those new stores, they’re asking
all the nitty-gritty questions. ‘Where do
you source the materials? How do you recycle the water?’ she
says. ‘How can you use less electricity? All of these aspects are
taken into consideration now.’
She’s also taking steps in her own life. This famous jet-setter?
She says she’s no longer flying privately. And, when it comes to
her designs, she sees quality and craftsmanship as the antidote
to the fast-fashion mind-set. ‘We cannot forget the value of
heritage, because today fashion is like,Wear today; throw it away
tomorrow,‘ she says. It’s rare to see someone who’s so squarely
a part of the old-school fashion world and yet so engaged
with everything new. She says she keeps herself surrounded by
young, creative employees, a posse of anti-yes men and women.
‘It’s so easy to surround yourself with people who think like
you, who say yes [to everything]. That’s the moment you should
retire. You should go and do something else.’When I mention the period in the mid-199Os when designers
opted for scores of anonymous, interchangeable models,
she sputters, ‘Oh God, I couldn’t take it anymore!’ The Versace
girl has always been a supermodel. For the house’s AW91
show, a band of mononymic glamazons – Linda, Cindy, Claudia,
Naomi, Carla – strutted to the strains of George Michael’s
Freedom! ’90(a watershed moment Versace nodded to more
than 25 years later by reuniting those same women at her spring
2O18 show). Versace was prescient about that, and many other
things, too. She foresaw the friends-with-benefits relationship
that would spring up between pop music and fashion, forging
alliances early on with Madonna and Prince. The latter made CDs
of then-unreleased music especially for
the Atelier Versace couture show in 1995.his clash of culture was very
interesting to me,’ she says. ‘And
I thought,If fashion doesn’t go
into this world, it will become irrelevant.‘
And before politicians and fashion mingled
so seamlessly, she invited Chelsea Clinton
to her spring 2OO2 catwalk show and
gave her a mini- Donatella makeover.
(‘I saw her recently. I adore her. She’s a
smart girl,’ she says of Clinton.) Her interest
in politics hasn’t abated. She imitates
her phone going, going, going with its
fusillade of push notifications. Her morning
news-gathering routine goes like this: Politics first, ‘then fashion, and
then music, and then art’. She has a lot to say about, for example,
Greta Thunberg. ‘I’m very happy a 16 -year-old girl said, “How
dare you take my future away?” I really like the youth in this
moment; there are a lot of young people with great ideas.’ They
remind her of her student days at the University of Florence: ‘I was
into protesting. I was outside in the street.’
She’s also been outspoken regarding the #MeToo movement.
(‘I’ve always defended women. I’m finding a lot of women more
interesting than men right now.’) While she says she didn’t
face sexism when assuming her mantle at the company, she
acknowledges that this is probably because she ‘was in a [more]
privileged position’ as a family member. When I mention the wave
of covered-up fashions that followed in the wake of the #MeToo
allegations, she purrs, ‘Not on my runway.’ She’s a firm believer
that a woman should be able to dress however she likes. She
wants to live in a world where you can command the upper
echelons of business in a corset. And why not?
Versace is an ardent supporter of LGBTQ+ rights; because
of her brother’s legacy, she says, ‘I can’t not be.’ Last year, sheELLE.COM/UK April 2020“ I CANNOT LIVE
FORE VER. I’M
NOT GOING TO BE
here forever;
THINGS CHANGE
IN FASHION. I’M THE
FIRST ONE
op en to change ”Elle RE ADS
Photography: Getty Images, Shutterstock, Splash News,Valerio Mezzanotti/The New York Times/eyevine, courtesy of Versace.