Muse of her brother Gianni, blonde inside and out, Donatella Versace is a universe of energy in constant evolution. Her story is very rich: ten fun facts between fashion, music, sacred and profane.
Donatella Versace is Versace . She is fashion in its beautiful sense of opulence, she is the legacy of a maximalist aesthetic that in the 90s, together with her brother Gianni, she rewrote the codes. There is a before and an after in Donatella’s life . But there is also the sacred and the profane, the top models, the music , the saving friends. Donatella is a woman who lives her time, a time where age does not count as much as the eager gaze of curiosity with which she constantly looks to the future.
Scroll down to discover with L’Officiel Italia the 10 curiosities about Donatella Versace.
Donatella Versace and the extraordinary gifts
In 1989 Gianni Versace created the second line Versus , a compendium of garments born to interpret the alternative style of the times to be dedicated to a young audience attentive to unconventional trends. But it is a gift shaped by the hands of Gianni and placed in those of his sister Donatella, a gesture of gratitude and eternal love towards his muse and brilliant interlocutor.
Sending the Jungle Dress to Jennifer Lopez Was Accidental
Everyone knows that the Versace Jungle dress is a legend. It made the history of Jennifer Lopez , Donatella Versace and… Google. During the night of the Grammy Awards, the algorithm of the most famous search engine in the world was assaulted by an impressive flow of searches for photos of J.Lo wearing that dress. The next day, a search tool was born, which is now essential, like Google Images. It was 2000. But the fun fact linked to the Versace dress, which had also been worn previously by Geri Halliwell, concerns its accidental sending to the diva Lopez. To unblock Jennifer’s impasse in front of the audacity of the dress, Donatella did nothing more than advise her to use simple adhesive tape. Problem solving rulez.
Donatella Versace’s platinum blonde is that of Patty Pravo
At 11, Donatella dyed her hair platinum blonde. But it wasn’t a completely independent choice, driven by a particularly rebellious spirit, she was induced by her brother Gianni who convinced her that it was the right hair style for her personality. The truth from here expands to what we can easily consider a total passion/obsession of the stylist for the Italian singer Patty Pravo, whose ethereal appearance is underlined by a mass of shiny and compact gold threads. In 1995 the Blonde perfume was born in homage to Donatella’s flowing hair which is also Patty’s.
Donatella Versace has never sewn a dress
Absurd but it’s true. While her brother Gianni, since he was a child, tried his hand at needle and thread in the back room of his mother’s clothing store in Reggio Calabria, Donatella devoted herself to other things such as studying languages: during the formative years of the Versace brothers, Donatella attended the University of Languages in Florence, thus perfecting her Spanish and English. However, this did not prevent her from becoming the entrepreneur she is, at the head of a fashion empire such as that of Medusa.
Donatella Versace Models for a Day (and for a Friend)
Teaming up, working together with the intent to support the fashion system is the only way forward. If today it is normal to assert it, in 2015 it was utopia but already part of a thought shared by two giants of fashion, Donatella Versace and Riccardo Tisci , at the time Creative Director for Givenchy . And so the Italian designer, who was based in Paris at the time, asked Donatella to pose in the autumn/winter 2015 campaign as the brand’s new icon. Mert and Marcus ‘ shots are, to this day, documents with a more than significant symbolic value. Breaking the mold and going beyond barriers is a living part of the DNA of the two designers. If Franco Moschino did it in the 90’s, Donatella in the 80’s and 90’s anticipated the trend by being portrayed by Bruce Weber’s lens as a model for the advertising campaigns of the family fashion house.
Donatella Versace before and after, Gianni is always by her side
Donatella Versace, before being the power woman we all know, was the beloved sister of her genius brother Gianni. Muse and motivator, sometimes even tough, she was the only one capable of keeping the designer’s creative flow high. Their relationship was so symbiotic and united that it is not surprising to discover that at just 12 years old, she was the one who let him dress her up in high heels and cool clothes and accompany her brother to the disco. She was the direct test of his stylistic ideas.
Donatella Versace received by the Pope
Raised with a Catholic education, Donatella Versace boasts of having met even the Pope in her life. The last three. “I was invited” she commented on the matter. If she says of Pope Francis that he is a true revolutionary, someone who keeps his promises, when she met John Paul II it was like being received by a rock star. On the occasion of the great exhibition Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination, staged at the Met in 2018, It was the first time that the treasures of the sacristy of the Sistine Chapel were exhibited outside the Vatican. In this regard Donatella Versace together with Anna Wintour met Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi at Palazzo Colonna in Rome.
How the friendship between Donatella Versace and Lady Gaga was born
Lady Gaga becomes Donatella in the Versace Spring Summer 2014 campaign in a temporal transfer with the shots with Madonna in 1995
In 1995 Madonna posed in the Versace campaigns by Steven Maisel, in 2014 Lady Gaga is the blond icon Versace in the spring summer campaign by Mert and Marcus. A passing of the baton that has seen the friendship and relationship between the two power girls grow and consolidate, born in 2011 with the participation of Versace outfits in the video Edge of Glory. For the singer Donatella agreed to open the doors of the Medusa archives. Never happened with anyone else. In 2013 Gaga wrote her a song, Donatella , which she will include in the album Artpop , describing the designer’s bold style like this: I’m skinny. I’m rich and I’m a little bit of a bitch . The latest in a future full of collaborations between the two is the project for Pride Month 2021: Versace’s merges with the tenth anniversary of Lady Gaga’s album Born This Way which gave birth to the Born This Way Foundation.
Donatella’s real ghost advisor is Audrey Versace
Donatella Versace and friends like Elton John
During the private dinner organized at Palazzo Versace for the celebration of his daughter Allegra’s eighteenth birthday, in June 2004, without Donatella Versace’s knowledge, Elton John organizes for her, that same night, a direct transfer to the drug detox rehabilitation clinic in Arizona. Two months later she emerges from there completely transformed and ready to return to command stronger and more focused than before. If not for this, what are friends for?
Extra Bonus: Donatella sings Bruno Mars Versace on The Floor
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Donatella sings Bruno Mars “Versace on The Floor”