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By March 1978 he was ready to go
out on his own, and asked his brother
and sister to help him launch the Ver-
sace label. Gianni designed men’s and
women’s collections and they opened a
store in Milan’s Via Spiga. Santo
became business manager, then presi-
dent. Donatella acted as muse, design
assistant and marketing and PR guru.
Some of Milan’s elite dismissed
them as brash southerners, but the sib-
lings could deal with that. As the 1970s
ticked over into the ’80s there was a
hunger for sexy clothes with colour and
punch that you could dance and flirt in.
If you preferred something subtler there
was always Armani. The Italian fashion
set divided into two camps – those who
loved Armani’s classy tailoring; and
those who embraced Versace’s more-is-
more mentality, buckled into Gianni’s
gold Medusa-head belts and shimmied
into his provocative metal mesh
dresses. Donatella looked sensational in
them, tanned a deep brown, her plati-
num hair shining.
It was around this
time that Donatella met
her husband, Versace
model Paul Beck. They
were married in 1983,
Allegra was born in 1986
and son Daniel came
along in 1989, by which
time Santo also hadchildren. But Allegra was obviously
Gianni’s favourite – he doted on her.
The demands of the business were
growing. Gianni worked all hours, add-
ing new collections and projects. He
produced books and designed home-
wares, denim and ballet and theatre
costumes – even Elton John’s tour ward-
robe. Soon he was dressing royalty in
the form of Diana, Prin-
cess of Wales. Donatella
was put in charge of the
difusion line Versus, and
she was often out at
night, courting celebri-
ties and models who were
key to the house’s success.
They made good
money, but by God could they spend it.
Gianni began collecting art, shelled out
$6.6 million USD for the Miami proper-
ty and paid large bonuses to the new
supermodels to walk for Versace exclu-
sively. Most famously, for his autumn
1991 collection, Linda Evangelista,Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford and
Christy Turlington stormed Versace’s
Milan fashion week catwalk to George
Michael’s hit “Freedom! ’90”.
Donatella was running up impres-
sive bills of her own. According to
Deborah Ball, author of House of
Versace: The Untold Story of Genius,
Murder, and Survival, Donatella was
spending $150,000 USD a year on hair
extensions alone by the early noughties.
Her cocaine habit began as fun. “I
had the best time of my life,” she told US
Vog ue in 2005, admitting to an 18-year
addiction. “Unfortunately, it doesn’t
continue that way.” A
clean spell after Gianni’s
death was followed by a
worse one where she
mixed it with sedatives.
In 2004, Elton John per-
suaded Donatella into
rehab. She spent five
weeks at The Meadows
clinic in Arizona and hasn’t looked back.
Today, she has proven more than
capable of continuing the Versace
legacy as a designer in her own right.
Donatella’s style is her own and, as last
year’s collaboration with singer Zayn
Malik showed, she is just as switched
onto the zeitgeist as Gianni was.
And it looks like she’s finally made
peace with her demons and her broth-
er’s legacy. Her spring ’18 collection at
Milan fashion week, 20 years after his
death, was a triumph. It celebrated his
archival prints and silhouettes but all
with a Donatella twist. And it closed
with five supermodels – Cindy Craw-
ford, Naomi Campbell, Claudia Schifer,
Helena Christensen and Carla Bruni –
reunited in Gianni’s gold mesh dresses.Gianni was
creative. Santo
was the sensible
one. Donatella
was wildThe Assassination of Gianni Versace:
American Crime Story will screen in
Australia on Showcase.Left: Donatella
with her former
husband Paul Beck
and their children
Daniel and Allegra
in London in 1992.
Below: Donatella
and Allegra stand
with Santo Versace
at Gianni’s funeral
in Italy in 1997.Left and above: Gigi Hadid (in red pants)
models for Versace’s A/W18 show in
Milan; Donatella and Gigi’s ex-boyfriend,
singer Zayn Malik, collaborated on
Versace’s Versus label last year.Right: models, including
Cindy Crawford’s daughter
Kaia Gerber (second from
right), showcase Versace’s
A/W18 collection.LIFE STORIES