WHO IS DONATELLA VERSACE?

Photo: Donatella Versace

Heloclub news stated that, If it had not been for the tragedy which took place on July 15, 1997, Donatella Versace might still be a bit player on the world's fashion stage. But the death of her brother Gianni, who was gunned down outside his Miami mansion, propelled the platinum blonde into the limelight. And in a few short years, she has upped the profile of the Milanese fashion house into the stratosphere, helping make Versace the label of choice for celebrities the world over. Born in the Italian town of Reggio di Calabria in 1955, the daughter of a businessman and a dressmaker to the aristocracy, Donatella was the youngest of four children. Although Gianni was a decade her senior, the two were close, and by the age of 11 Donatella was accompanying her brother to discos and nightclubs. "Gianni was the wildest," she once told an interviewer, "Then he pushed me to be wild. Now I'm the wilder one; it's his fault." After attending Florence University in the Seventies, Donatella joined Gianni's fledgling fashion company. She started out handling his PR, but her involvement went much deeper and many credit her with being his muse, as her input was constant.  "If my sister wants to do something, okay," Gianni once told Vanity Fair. "If she doesn't like a sketch, I will cancel it." It was Donatella who came up with the idea of using well-known models for the catwalk shows, knowing that it would generate more press coverage for the Versace label, and in the Nineties she was given carte blanche to design a new line, Versus.  With her unerring feel for the Zeitgeist, Donatella, who loved to frequent nightspots, was invaluable to Gianni, as she was able to tap into what the younger generation craved. Gianni's murder changed Donatella's life forever.

Her first reaction was to take the family off to a private resort in the Caribbean where they could mourn the loss of the designer together. The Spring-Summer 98 collection was cancelled. Then Donatella had a blinding realisation: the show must go on. Gianni had told his sister – perhaps after he was diagnosed with ear cancer in the early Nineties – that if anything were to happen to him, she was to take over. So she did. Her first collection, attended by a host of celebrities, was a triumph. But in typical Donatella fashion she credited its success to the seamstresses and models, and dedicated the show to, "Gianni's love of work and to our entire staff, whose incredible love and devotion was so precious to our brother and means so much to us." Donatella brought a new sensibility to the house of Versace. These days, the label is more in tune with the modern career woman, as the former muse has taken her inspiration from the lives of friends such as Madonna, Trudie Styler, Naomi Campbell and Courtney Love. And, while the hemlines might not have dropped along with the price tags, collections display more variety while retaining her brother's original ethos. With profits looking good and rave reviews in the fashion press, Donatella is riding high. She has two children, Allegra, born in 1986, to whom Gianni bequeathed the lion's share of his multi-million dollar estate, and Daniel, five years his sister's junior. The fashion house head is married to Paul Beck, a former model, although the two generally live separate lives. With houses just about everywhere – not to mention the five-star Versace hotels that are springing up all over the globe – Donatella leads the peripatetic life only the truly rich can achieve. With diamonds that are "bigger than a very big grape, but smaller – just – than an apricot" – according to the Daily Telegraph, Donatella is excessive glamour personified.

Versace's Sultry Summer 2006

Donatella Versace turned up the heat at Paris couture week today with a smoldering spring-summer 2006 collection of slinky siren gowns, micro-minis and sleek pant suits sparkling with crystals and beads. Pop diva Christina Aguilera, who appeared in Versace's latest print ad campaign, set flashguns popping at the evening show in an ornate room at the swank Ritz hotel owned by Mohamed Al Fayed, who also was in attendance. The Italian designer, back on the Paris catwalk for the first time in 18 months, sent out a bevy of beauties in her own image: long locks - most of them blond like hers - combed pin straight, bodies tanned and stomachs toned. Her mini-dresses showed why Versace is synonymous with glamour: a canary yellow mini with criss-crossing woven strips of satin, chiffon and suede, and a pink and green number in draped crystal fringe oozed sex appeal. Versace likes her models to show skin: circular cut-outs of varying sizes abounded at the midriff, necklines plunged and strands of crystals wrapped around the hip created a peekaboo effect. For actresses and singers like Aguilera looking for red-carpet attire, the designer didn't disappoint: low-cut floor-length gowns in lilac, light blue, lime and black glittered with jewels. Versace greeted her fans at show's end in a white halter top and tight white trousers - mirroring her first runway piece, a white satin pant suit with trousers flared at the knee and a belted jacket with flashy silver detailing. Unlike the 21st century spectacle of the Christian Dior show or the paparazzi frenzy at Versace, Italy's Maurizio Galante put on an 18th century show, unveiling his collection at one-fifth the size on cloth marionnettes. Shirtless male actors manipulated the puppet models, who were clad in an eclectic mix of day and evening wear - standouts included a black velvet smoking jacket or a creamy vanilla silk evening gown of hexagons pieced together, both dotted with pearls. Galante played with cut and proportion, offering both mini crocheted dresses cut close to the body and billowing silk pyjama pants. Trench coats are a sure bet for next spring. Paris haute couture week continues tomorrow with Chanel, Christian Lacroix and Givenchy taking center stage.

WORLD HAUTE COUTURE AND FASHION A LA VERSACE

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STARS, STYLE AND SIGNATURE.

Photo: Salma Hayek

"Today we know the price of everything and the value of nothing." Oscar Wilde said that and he hadn't even seen In Style magazine. In Style is the drop-dead worst magazine in print. It presents attractive objects in dizzying abundance -- fine, that's its job -- but the way it associates beautiful design with cheap unearned celebrity is wrong and dangerous. Even I feel fretful after I read it, and I've never run up a credit-card debt in my life. How many women go bankrupt after reading In Style? Salma Hayek was on the cover last month wearing a dress by Versace, a fashion house so much better run by Donatella than the late Gianni. The dress is a pinkish beige satin, the color of a pearl whose oyster was tickled full-time in its own private ocean. Its ribbons swing outwards, then inwards, then outwards again, giving the superstructure a lot of support. I can't tell whether it's comfortable, but the knockoff (with miniskirt rather than Versace's strategic silk georgette rag skirt) I bought at Galeries Lafayette in Paris on Sept. 10 is loaded with Lycra and I could exercise in it with comfort. The label is Anti-Flirt. What are the Flirt people selling, the ribbons minus the dress? Adam Gopnik recently wrote in the New Yorker about the decline of the American department stores as they lose their ability to disguise acquisitiveness as membership. In Paris, almost all the great ones -- Galeries, BHV and Printemps -- are flourishing. Proof? You can buy a knockoff of a Versace dress faster than you can ink your lips. And I can also buy an apron, a T. Leclerc Banana face powder and a Babyliss ionic travel hair dryer. You can't miss. I paid about $300. I can't see that Donatella minds because only rich women can buy a genuine Versace ball gown. I'm not rich and a residual Scottish morality means I wouldn't spend thousands of dollars on a dress even if I could. Her little match girls wearing Anti-Flirt are useful to her. The choice was between this and a lovely but horrible pink satin suit with ruching at the crotch and a neckline to the waist. Barbara Cartland would have happily been buried in it. "Am I too aged to wear the ribbony dress?" I asked the beautiful young saleswoman. "No, because you're so skinny you frighten me, and I'm French," she said, or words to that effect. So I'm safe for now, said Heather Malick

The Paris Show: Couture High Art Stalks the Catwalk

On Thursday night I saw something that made even this jaded art critic sit up and pay attention - Jean Paul Gaultier's couture show in Paris. As I sat there in my sober grey suit, a parade of beautiful Amazons passed by in their vertiginously high heels and towering piles of braided, coiled or frizzy hair. If the mannequins were not quite topless, they were dead sexy in gauzy silk jerseys with plunging necklines and skin-tight silk trousers. One Moroccan caftan slipped off a slim shoulder to reveal an evening gown as transparent as the flimsiest negligee. Under silk kimonos and monks' cowls were bodices, bustiers and laced leather corsets. On and on came the visual surprises, jokes and shocks. Even the bride who ended the show wore Samurai-inspired body armour. As each new apparition stepped forward, the intensity of the colours made your eyes pop: aubergine worn over poison green, the flounces of a black gipsy skirt embroidered with harsh yellow and scarlet flowers, a black model wearing a neck-to-toe body stocking in chocolate brown embroidered with white abstract patterns. Every detail was thought out down to the last embroidered bead, sequin and python-skin glove.

Massive tribal jewellery covered the long necks and arms of most of the models so that, as they moved, you heard the sound of rattling coral, ivory, bone and turquoise. The giraffe necks of some models had been painted bright blue or yellow; others had their faces dotted with paint in a way that suggested tribal scarification. For a long time I have been interested in the relationship between fashion and art. I attended Gaultier, Valentino and Ungaro's couture shows in Paris last week and came away convinced that art galleries should hold regular shows of recent couture clothing. There are two reasons why I believe couture approaches the realms of high art. The first is that each garment is a unique act of creation by an artist whose feel for texture, colour and composition may amount to genius, as in the case of John Galliano or Gaultier. The second is that, like all works of art, these clothes are created without any serious reference to function - to the practical possibility that a real woman might be able to wear them.

Jean-Paul Gaultier

Gaultier's jaw-dropping outfits, for example, transcend culture and time. He treats his models the way an artist uses a canvas - as blank surfaces on which to embroider his wildest, most outrageous fantasies and as vehicles for his surrealistic imaginings. And I have to say that one of the most interesting aspects of the Gaultier show for me was that the painted and scarified giants who modeled the clothes were slightly frightening. For the finale, they all returned wearing only the bare bones of the clothes: the corsets, bras, high heels, fantastic jewels and headdresses. For a brief moment, I thought of the monstrous brigade of women who confront us in Picasso's first cubist masterpiece, the Demoiselles d'Avignon. Here was the same vision of European women seen through the prism of African tribal art, the same confrontational aesthetic, the same fascination mixed with fear of women's bodies. For, under the gorgeous fabrics and seductive colours, the models were encased in materials that are cold, hard and dangerous. Gaultier's clothes are not simply decorative masterpieces: they express feelings, ideas and emotions, like all works of art.