Donatella Versace

Donatella Versace (born 2 May 1955) is an Italian fashion designer and current Vice-President of the Versace Group, as well as chief designer. She owns 20 percent of the entire stock market assets of Versace. Her brother, Santo Versace, owns 30 percent. Donatella's daughter Allegra Versace inherited 50% of the company stock after the death of Gianni Versace, Donatella's brother and Versace's founder. Versace was born in the Italian city of Reggio di Calabria, the youngest of four children in her family. Her father was a personal financier to the Italian aristocracy. An older sister, Tina, died at the age of twelve from an improperly treated tetanus infection. In the mid 1970s, Donatella followed her older brother, Giovanni ("Gianni"), to pursue knitwear design in Florence, Italy. Donatella had planned to work for her brother as Public Relations, but she was more valuable to Gianni as a "muse and critic," according to Donatella during an interview with Vogue. Through her closeness to her brother's enterprises, Donatella plunged into the fashion world. A decade later, during the 1980s, Gianni launched a perfume dedicated to her, Blonde, and gave her her own diffusion label, Versus,